[Python-Dev] Mixing float and Decimal -- thread reboot (original) (raw)

Adam Olsen rhamph at gmail.com
Mon Mar 22 06:51:47 CET 2010

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 16:59, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:

If naive users are going to use the interpreter as a calculator, they're going to start off using floats and ints simply because they require less typing. My idea is to allow a gentle learning curve with Decimal (and Fraction) without scaring them off with exceptions or excessive warnings: a single warning per session would be okay, a warning after every operation would be excessive in my opinion, and exceptions by default would be right out.

That strikes me as a passive-aggressive way of saying we tolerate it for interactive use, but don't you dare mix them for real programs.

A warning should be regarded as a bug in real programs — unless it's a transitional measure — so it might as well be an exception. Don't guess and all that.

-- Adam Olsen, aka Rhamphoryncus

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