[Python-ideas] Please reconsider the Boolean evaluation of midnight

[Nick Coghlan]

On 8 Mar 2014 03:19, "Guido van Rossum" <guido at python.org> wrote:
>
> If I had to do it over again I would *definitely* never make a time value
"falsy". The datetime module was conceived long ago, when the dangers of
falsy objects that weren't clearly trying to be "like numbers" or "like
collections" weren't so clear. Today I would argue that times aren't enough
"like numbers" to qualify.
>
> The only question left in my mind is how safe it is to change the current
behavior, given that it's been documented and implemented for over a
decade. If this was for Python 3.0 (or even 3.1) I would definitely vote
for fixing it, damn the torpedoes. But given that we're talking about 3.5,
I'm more hesitant. It's also not something for which a deprecation warning
would work well. (When would it be issued? Whenever bool(<time>) is called?
Or only when it's about to return False?)

I was proposing a deprecation warning when it would be about to return
False, advising the use of an explicit comparison instead. My rationale was
that people that actually rely on it are at least somewhat likely to be
testing it and would trigger the warning and have a chance to change their
code.

However, on reflection, just changing with a note in the porting guide
would actually have a similar consequence.

Regards,
Nick.
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