PEP 285: Adding a bool type

[Cliff Wells]

On Fri, 5 Apr 2002 16:09:41 -0500
Steve Holden wrote:

Steve, please be a bit more careful.  Your post sort of made it look like
you were responding to things *I* had said (which I've snipped here) which
were in fact said by John Roth.  I was even confused for a second =)

[snip]

> "Cliff Wells" <logiplexsoftware at earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:mailman.1017865089.20676.python-list at python.org...
> > So what you are saying fits perfectly with what Laura asserted.  If you
> > have a function numberOfLeapDays() why on earth would you need
> > isLeapYear()?  The solution is simple: don't return a boolean when
another
> > type can not only express true/false but also convey other information
as
> > well.
> >
> It seems plain (now I've read so much of the discussion) that if book
isn't
> going to behave as a full-blown Boolean object it would be better to
leave
> well enough alone.

Well, it's been proven arguable ;)

> > I didn't necessarily agree with all of Laura's assertions regarding the
> > difficulty of understanding how booleans would fit into Python, but she
> > raised several compelling and thoughtful arguments.  I totally agree
that
> > bools as return values of functions are less than useful.  Booleans
have
> > the lowest information density of any type and thus would tend to
increase
> > code verbosity if their use were to be encouraged.
> >
> I too thought Laura made a thoughtful contribution to the discussion,
that
> deserved to be considered more respectfully.

I agree and in fact I've discussed this offlist with Guido.  He assures me
that he did carefully consider Laura's arguments.  Regardless, he didn't
agree and didn't feel it was necessary to respond directly to them as so
many other people already had.

> > Frankly Guido's dismissal of Laura's arguments as FUD was not only a
bit
> > rude, but IMHO a bit short-sighted as well (given the fact that
someday,
> > there may be a desire for a real boolean type).  Maybe Tim Peters has
> > borrowed his time-machine and not returned it ;)
> >
> However it happened, it left me feeling a little embarrassed that I had
> originally defended Guido's inegrity and suggested that despite his
> authorship the PEP's acceptance was not a foregone conclusion. I hope I
> wasn't wrong, but that's not how it looks right now. Oh well.

While I disagree with Guido's decision, I don't really think it has
anything to do with his integrity (although it certainly could give that
appearance).  I was fairly irritated at how this change went about (enough
to contact Guido personally about it) and despite not reaching agreement on
the decision, I do feel certain that the issue was properly considered on
his part and that he simply came to a different conclusion than many others
(myself included).

Regards,

-- 
Cliff Wells, Software Engineer
Logiplex Corporation (www.logiplex.net)
(503) 978-6726 x308  (800) 735-0555 x308