[Python-ideas] Python docs page: In what ways is None special

[Paul Moore]

On 23 July 2018 at 12:24, Jonathan Fine <jfine2358 at gmail.com> wrote:
> You also wrote:
>> One of the key points about this proposal [PEP 505]
>
> My goal in this thread is to document clearly and develop a clear
> shared understanding of the ways in which None is special in Python.
> Please, please, please can we not discuss PEP 505 in this thread.
> There's already another thread for that.

OK, apologies for my confusion between the threads.

> I want this thread to produce a web page that is useful for beginners
> and intermediate Python programmers (which perhaps some experts might
> also benefit from reading).

My view would be basically "None isn't special, it's just another
value. By the time you understand enough to want to treat None
specially, you probably already know enough about how the language
does". That's very over-simplified, sure, but I really don't see None
as *that* special except in the context of non-beginner ideas like
"it's similar to SQL NULL", or "it's like a null pointer in C". In my
experience, I've found I tend more to be explaining to beginners why
None *isn't* special than why it is.

Which is why I found your list of examples interesting, because many
of them were about convention rather than language support.

Paul