[Python-Dev] PEP 490: Chain exceptions at C level

[Nick Coghlan]

On 20 June 2015 at 19:00, Stefan Behnel <stefan_ml at behnel.de> wrote:
> And that is the crux in your proposal: you're changing the default
> behaviour into its opposite. In order to do that, it should be reasonably
> likely that the current standard behaviour is not intended in more than
> half of the cases. I find that difficult to estimate.

I think in this case the design decision can be made more on the basis
of how difficult it is to flip the behaviour to the non-default case:

Status quo: "Dear CPython core developers, why do you hate us so?
Signed, everyone that has ever needed to manually chain exceptions at
the C level using the current C API" (OK, it's not *that* bad as C
level coding goes, but it's still pretty arcane, requiring a lot of
knowledge of exception handling implementation details)

With Victor's PEP: "Call PyErr_Clear() before setting your exception
to disable the implicit exception chaining in 3.6+ in a way that
remains entirely compatible with older Python versions"

Given that significant difference in relative usability, +1 from me
for changing the default behaviour.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia