Grzegorz Staniak wrote:
On 22.09.2008, Carl Banks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wroted:
Some would argue (and some did by the time Python grew a 'bool' type)
that what is wrong is to have a bool type in a language that already
have a wider definition of the truth value of an expression...
And some would argue that it was wrong to have such a wide definition
for the truth value of an expression in the first place...
An alternate viewpoint is that only True and False 'have' a truth value.
So whenever the interpreter *needs* a truth value for conditional and
logical operations, and it has something else, it implicitly calls
bool(ob) to get one. This, or possibly a shortcut version thereof, is
what a Python interpreter effectively does.
From this viewpoint, objecters would instead have to argue that it is
wrong to have such implicit calls and that programmers should have to
put them in explicitly.
Just out of idle curiosity, what could be the alternatives? Not to evaluate
e.g. strings to "true"? Aren't such conventions as "whatever is not empty,
is 'true'" popular in dynamic langauges?
I do not know what is popular, but implicit bool call are darn handy.
tjr
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