[Python-Dev] PEP 553; the interaction between $PYTHONBREAKPOINT and -E (original) (raw)

Barry Warsaw barry at python.org
Wed Oct 4 20:28:16 EDT 2017

"""Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules."""

People expect -E to disable envvar-driven overrides, so just treat it like that and don't try to second-guess the user.

And of course "Although practicality beats purity.” :)

So while I agree that the consistency argument makes sense, does it make the most practical sense?

I’m not sure. On the PR, Nick suggests even another option: treat -E as all other environment variables, but then -I would be PYTHONBREAKPOINT=0. Since the documentation for -I says "(implies -E and -s)” that seems even more special-case-y to me.

"In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.”

I’m really not sure what the right answer is, including to not make PYTHONBREAKPOINT obey -E.

Unfortunately we probably won’t really get a good answer in practice until Python 3.7 is released, so maybe I just choose one and document that the behavior of PYTHONBREAKPOINT under -E is provision for now. If that’s acceptable, then I would just treat -E for PYTHONBREAKPOINT the same as all other environment variables, and we’ll see how it goes.

Cheers, -Barry

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