[Python-Dev] PEP: Consolidating names and classes in the unittestmodule (updated 2008-07-15) (original) (raw)

Ben Finney ben+python at benfinney.id.au
Wed Jul 16 00:41:47 CEST 2008

Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> writes:

A somewhat odd thought that occurred to me is that the shortest possible way of writing negative assertions (i.e. asserting that something is not the case) is to treat them as denials and use the single word 'deny'.

-1

This, to me, is neither intuitive nor meaningful in context. The term "deny" is strongly linked to its antonym, "permit".

Whom is being denied? What have they asked to do that I am denying in my test? I think in terms of "true or false", or "pass or fail". I'm making statements about behaviour of the program, not about permitting or denying something.

-- \ “The industrial system is profoundly dependent on commercial | `\ television and could not exist in its present form without it.” | o_) —John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State, 1967 | Ben Finney

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