question of style

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:10:48 -0700, Paul Rubin wrote:

> Anyway, Python's overloading of bool(...) is yet another misfeature and
> although it's convenient, the "explicit is better than implicit"
> principle indicates to avoid that sort of trick.

"Overloading of bool()"?

I don't understand what that means -- you mean you dislike the ability to 
overload __bool__ (__nonzero__ in older Pythons)? That seems strange. 
Python allows you to overload __int__ and __str__ and __float__, why is 
__bool__ a misfeature? If that's what you mean, then I'm perplexed.

Or do you mean that all Python objects are interpretable in a truth 
context? If that's what you mean, then I'm not perplexed, I'm sure you're 
utterly wrong. Certain people -- a tiny minority -- keep trying to argue 
that the ability to say "if obj" for arbitrary objects is somehow a bad 
thing, and their arguments seem to always boil down to:

"If you write code that assumes that only bools have a truth value, then 
surprising things will happen because all objects have a truth value."

Well duh.

If you think you have a better reason for calling the truth value of 
arbitrary objects a "misfeature", I'd like to hear it.



-- 
Steven