On Feb 28, 9:36 am, Grant Edwards <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 2008-02-28, Carl Banks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >> Automatic conversions, okay... but converting a result when > >> all inputs are of one time, NO... > > > People, this is so cognitive dissonance it's not even funny. > > > There is absolutely nothing obvious about 1/2 returning a number that > > isn't at least approximately equal to one half. > > I guess obviousness is in the eye of the beholder. To me it's > obvious that "1" and "2" are integers, and it's also obvious > that 2 goes into 1 zero times.
2 goes into 1 0.5 times. > > There is nothing self-evident about operations maintaining > > types. > > By that logic, there's no reason for 1 + "two" shouldn't > convert one operand or the other. False dilemma, chief. That preserving type is not self-evident doesn't make all operations that don't preserve type a good idea. > > You people can't tell the difference between "obvious" and "learned > > conventions that came about because in limitations in the hardware at > > the time". > > It seems to me that the expectation that 1/2 yield 0.5 is just > as much a convention as that it yield 0 or a true rational. Sure it is, but unlike the old convention, it's the obvious one. Carl Banks -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
