On Monday 23 May 2016 03:25, Random832 wrote: > Why shouldn't Python do this? > > Imagine some future version of Python: >>>> x = 2/3 >>>> x > (2/3) >>>> type(x) > <class 'rational'>
You would have a lot of trouble convincing Guido that this was a good idea, because that's what ABC used to do, and it was a performance killer, as well as being horrible to work with. Rationals like 2/3 are fine. But the trouble is, by the time you've done a handful of calculations, you've probably got something like 5529748264768821/18014398509481984 and after a few dozen calculations you might have something like: 391303115027894573050315966944902650883330501592661514878103414119479331609846605406995557395414953/14109433351889544757158673468211253755455976544516272594484740551000078367597300074881469573563940864 and it just keeps getting worse and worse. For bonus points, without converting to floats, can you tell which of of the two numbers is bigger by sight? -- Steve -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list