Default parameters

[Paul Rubin]

Carl Banks <imbosol at aerojockey.invalid> writes:
> But I hope the reason you want this is because it's less surprising,
> more intuitive, more useful, or whatnot, and not just because Common
> Lisp did it that way.  Because people who can't see the side of any
> computer programming argument except in the context of Common Lisp are
> just pathetic.

It avoids the need for ridiculous kludges to check whether there is a
real arg there or not, etc.  I'd prefer that Python had used the CL
method in the first place since I find the Python method bizarre and
counterintuitive.  However, changing it now would introduce
incompatibility that's harder to justify.  So we probably have to live
with it.