[Python-ideas] Fix some special cases in Fractions?

[Paul Moore]

(You're still not fixing your mail headers. Please do, it's hard to be
bothered responding if I keep having to fix your mails in order to do
so).

On Thu, 30 Aug 2018 at 11:28, Neil Girdhar <mistersheik at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But I'm only asking for fractional powers of -1, 0, and 1.  Is that really a complex issue?

Yes. (Even ignoring the oh-so-tempting complex number joke ;-)). As
has been seen here there's no agreement on the "right" choice of which
root of -1 to choose. Or possibly more accurately, no-one else is
agreeing with your suggestion that we choose a different option for
the case you're arguing over.

And to be 100% precise, you asked for the results of three *very
specific* calculations to change. I guess you actually want something
more general - or are you really OK with (for example)
Fraction(-1,1)**Fraction(2,3) changing as you request, but
Fraction(-2,1)**Fraction(2,3) remaining as it currently is? You still
haven't clarified (no-one has particularly asked yet - you may
consider this a request to do so if you like) how you propose in
general that the result of

    Fraction(-1,1) ** Fraction(a, b)
and/or
    Fraction(1,1) ** Fraction(a, b)
or maybe even more generally
    Fraction(c,d) ** Fraction(a,b)

would change. What exactly are the special cases you want to define
different results for? What is the process for choosing the result?

> You are right that the fractional power of -1 and 1 has multiple values, but the fractional power of zero has a unique value.

And that part of your proposal has not generated much controversy.
Maybe if you proposed only that, you might get that change made? I
haven't considered the ramifications of that because the discussions
about -1 are obscuring it, but it might be relatively uncontroversial.

Paul