"Jim Jewett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >... I can work with and teach almost any model, > > and have done so with some pretty weird ones. > > I think python's model is "Whatever your other tools use. Ask them." > And I think that is a reasonable choice.
Answer: It's undefined. Just because you have tested your code today doesn't mean it will work tomorrow, or on a different set of values (however similar), or that it will give the same answer every time you do the same operation on the same input, or that the effects will be limited to wrong answers and stray exceptions. Still think that it is reasonable? > > Some people write Python that is intended to be robust and portable; > > it is those people who suffer. > > If your users stick to sensible inputs, then it doesn't matter which > model you used. Sigh. Let's step back a step. Who decides when inputs are sensible? And where is it documented? Answers: God alone knows, and nowhere. One of Python's general principles is that its operations should either do roughly what a reasonable user would expect, or it will raise an exception. It doesn't always get there, but it isn't bad. What you are saying is that is undesirable. The old Fortran and C model of saying that any user error can cause any effect (including nasal demons) is tolerable only if there is agreement on what IS an error, and there is some way for a user to find that out. In the case of C, neither is true. > If not, there is no way to get robust and portable; it is just a > matter of which users you annoy. Well, actually, there is. Though I agree that the techniques have rather been forgotten in the past 30 years. Python implements more of them than most languages. Regards, Nick Maclaren, University of Cambridge Computing Service, New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England. Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel.: +44 1223 334761 Fax: +44 1223 334679 _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com