[Python-ideas] Fast sum() for non-numbers - why so much worries?

[Ronald Oussoren]

On 11 Jul, 2013, at 7:27, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen at xemacs.org> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> In either case, this is a semantic change to sum, which is what you
>>> explicitly denied.
>> 
>> I'm not sure not supporting broken code counts as a semantic change.
>> That is what I was debating.
> 
> It does count; it's a language change.  It is not a bug-fix in which
> the implementation is brought into line with the language definition.

That doesn't mean that using += instead of + in sum isn't a valid change
to make for 3.4.

BTW. This thread has been rehashing the same arguments over and over again,
and it's pretty likely that most core devs have stopped following this thread
because of that.  It's probably time for someone to write a summary 
the discussion (what are the proposals and the arguments in favor and against them)

Ronald