Comment on PEP-0238

[Robert J. Harrison]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
> 
> > It is certainly not a benefit for experiencd programmers that
> > routinely switch between Python and other languages.
> 
> Your argument ends up pleading to repeat the mistakes of other
> languages -- in fact, taken to the extreme it would mean there should
> be only on language.  I don't find it a very strong argument.
> 

In don't see pure integer arithmetic as a mistake of
any kind.  It is clearly an essential component, as the
authour of PEP-238 also recognizes by proposing the // operator.
For most of the operations that I routinely
perform with integers, an integer result is exactly what
I want from integer division.  And any argument taken to an extreme 
usually becomes absurd, so I don't find your argument strong 
either.  

I remain completely unconvinced that anyone
will benefit from making integers merely non-special points 
embedded in the real line.  We can do that now by forcing
integers to reals using float().  So we seem to gain nothing
from PEP-238 and also break a lot of code in the process.

-- 
Robert J. Harrison (rjh at 3-cities.com)