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

Ben Finney ben+python at benfinney.id.au
Wed Jul 16 14:22:48 CEST 2008

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen at xemacs.org> writes:

The intuition that "fail" is a negative word is thus well-founded in standard usage.

That's not the same thing as "fail" being a negative word in the sense meant by "double negative".

That is, "not fail" is not a double negative; nor is "fail if X is not inside Y" a double negative. The use of "fail" in those phrases is a action, a verb, not a "negative".

So, this issue of avoiding "fail" in order to "avoid double negatives" has no basis in the use of "fail" in unittest.

-- \ “It was half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take | `\ hold” —Hunter S. Tolkien, Fear and Loathing in Barad-Dûr | o_) | Ben Finney

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