PEP 285: Adding a bool type

[Cliff Wells]

On Tue, 9 Apr 2002 13:15:15 +0100
Robin Becker wrote:

> Scripts in sed or awk that are 20 years old still run because their
> languages are stable. Python scripts that are 5 years old don't run. The
> rate of change is increasing precisely because product developers think
> continually changing them is advantageous. New versions always create
> update fever further down the food chain which is why intermediary users
> get so fed up with continual minor adjustments that cause software
> uncertainty.

Comparisons to sed and awk don't really seem appropriate.  Python is a
general-purpose programming language whereas sed and awk are special-purpose
languages with a rather limited scope.  I think your concerns are
understandable, but I don't see how you are going to escape this.  Rapid change
is the reality of our field, whether in operating systems, programming
languages, GUI's, whatever.  This is good, but of course makes everyone's job
more difficult.  However, hoping it will change doesn't seem realistic at this
point, in fact I expect that the rate of change will steadily increase (as
technology begets more technology).

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