default arguments newbie question

[Erik Max Francis]

Moshe Zadka wrote:

> But not for user-defined objects:
> 
> class FoolErik:
> 
>         def __cmp__(self, other):
>                 return cmp(None, other)

Sure, you can come up with pathological cases.  Are there really serious
cases where something like this would be done?  More importantly -- is
there a case where someone would do such a thing (having a user-defined
object which compared equal to None) that would do the wrong thing in
the code example?  If it compares equal to None, shouldn't surrounding
code act like it _was_ None?  If not, what is the point of having
something which compares equal to None but is not None?  Why would one
make such a distinction?

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