PEP 285: Adding a bool type

[Andrew Dalke]

Boris Borcic:
>BTW, I've been wondering if all the problems with voting machines
>(if not Bush's election itself) should not be ascribed to the infamous
>Y2K bug : after all, if programmers had not been monopolized by the
>task of preventing the bug hitting, maybe some work force would have
>been applied to design and implement more modern voting machines.

Getting even more off-topic,

"more modern" does not necessarily imply "more usable"
"more modern" ==/==> "more auditable"
"more modern" ==/==> "more correct"

Here's some links:
      http://www.csl.sri.com/users/neumann/neumann.html#5
      http://mainline.brynmawr.edu/~rmercuri/notable/evote.html
      http://www.asktog.com/columns/042ButterflyBallot.html

Quoting from http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/21.14.html#subj1
] In the wake of the recent Presidential election problems, the
] knee-jerk reaction of "gee, can't we modernize and solve all
] this with electronic and/or Internet voting?" is predictable,
] but still wrongheaded.  The shining lure of these "hype-tech"
] voting schemes is only a technological fool's gold that will
] create new problems far more intractable than those they claim
] to solve.

Rebecca Mercuri (in the 2nd link, above):
] I am adamantly opposed to the use of fully electronic or
] Internet-based systems for use in anonymous balloting and vote
] tabulation applications.  The reasons for my opposition are
] manyfold, and are expressed in my writings as well as those of
] other well-respected computer security experts.  At the present
] time, it is my strong recommendation that all election officials
] REFRAIN from procuring ANY system that does not provide an
] indisputable paper ballot.

I don't think the lack of programmers due to working on Y2K
remediation had any effect on the correctness of voting machines.

But, did it delay the addition of bool to Python?

                    Andrew
                    dalke at dalkescientific.com