[Python-3000] Wither PEP 335 (Overloadable Boolean Operators)? (original) (raw)

Raymond Hettinger python at rcn.com
Sat May 19 23:37:23 CEST 2007

Giovanni Bajo wrote:

Another workaround could be:

Before focusing mental talents on workarounds and implementations, it would be worthwhile to consider whether the idea would help or hurt the language. The and/or keywords already have some complexity due to their returning non-boolean values. IMO, it would be a disservice to the language to further complexify their meanings. Right now, at least, we can make a static reading of the code and have a good idea of what the and/or keywords mean.

Someone once proposed overloadable behavior for the "is" operator. IMO, the reasons for rejecting that idea also apply to this proposal.

FWIW, the peephole optimizer takes advantage of the current meaning of and/or to generate faster code. It would be ashamed to lose this optimization and have all applications pay a price in slower code.

Raymond

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