PEP 285: Adding a bool type

[Paul Rubin]

David Ascher <DavidA at ActiveState.com> writes:
> IIRC, there wasn't nearly this much heat in the discussion over the
> long/int unification or the type/class unification proposals, even
> though the latter especially was much more complicated, ambitious, and
> compatibility-challenging.


It's a cost/benefit thing.  Type/class unification may have cost more
in complexity than bools cost, but it has high benefits.  The bool
thing would a complicated change with limited benefit, so it's provoked
some sharp reactions.

> PS: I wish that this much heat got generated discussing changes and
> additions to the standard library...

It's usually easier to justify ADDING stuff than CHANGING stuff.
Additions to the standard library almost never mess up the language
guts, so if they have benefits they should generally be added without
needing a lot of discussion.  

Changing old libraries in ways that break exisiting programs is
usually bad, unless the change is expected to remove more bugs than it
causes.