On Feb 10, 5:50 pm, Ben Finney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Mark Dickinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > On Feb 10, 3:29 pm, Grant Edwards <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > platform does". Except it doesn't in cases like this. All my > > > platforms do exactly what I want for division by zero: they > > > generate a properly signed INF. Python chooses to override > > > that (IMO correct) platform behavior with something surprising. > > > Python doesn't generate exceptions for other floating point > > > "events" -- why the inconsistency with divide by zero? > > > But not everyone wants 1./0. to produce an infinity; some people > > would prefer an exception. > > Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules. > > Most people would not want this behaviour either:: > > >>> 0.1 > 0.10000000000000001 > > But the justification for this violation of surprise is "Python just > does whatever the underlying hardware does with floating-point > numbers". If that's the rule, it shouldn't be broken in the special > case of division by zero.
Do you recall what the very next Zen after "Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules" is? that's-why-they-call-it-Zen-ly yr's, Carl Banks -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
