On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 3:07 AM, Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> wrote: > On Fri, 20 May 2011 16:54:06 +1000, Chris Angelico wrote: > >> If someone has time to kill (as if!), it'd be awesome to get a new >> numeric type that uses bc's code; any other numeric type (int, long, >> float) could autopromote to it, removing the dilemma of which to promote >> out of long and float. Hmm... Python 4.0, 'bc' is the new default >> integer and everything else is a performance optimization? Heh. > > The problem is, it isn't *just* a performance optimization, there is a > semantic difference too. Consider:
Sure, but I'm thinking here that the "gold standard" is accuracy, with other types allowing a programmer to forfeit some accuracy in favour of performance. (Oh, and I should have said "new default numeric type".) And, of course, I was thinking in a stupid hypothetical way that's extremely unlikely ever to happen. Chris Angelico -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
