Steven D'Aprano <st...@remove-this-cybersource.com.au> writes: > Why should Python make that guarantee about this hypothetical "loop > forever" construct?
It doesn't make much sense for Python as normally practiced. Termination proofs (aka proofs of progress) are used in formal verification systems to make sure that the verification logic is consistent and that type-level inferences are valid. They generally have very little to do with making sure that the program's actual running time is bounded by anything reasonable. In fact infinite loops are permitted in some such systems, but only on infinite data streams (e.g. the request stream of a web server). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_functional_programming cites a pretty accessible paper by D. Turner that explains the idea in more detail. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
