[Python-Dev] Re: PEP-317

Mon, 9 Jun 2003 13:30:36 -0600

Quoth Guido van Rossum:
 [...]
> Python usually doesn't care about isinstance relationships but cares
> about whether the needed protocol is implemented, and this suggests
> that requiring exceptions to subclass Exception is unPythonic.

This came up in python-list not long ago [1], and I raised (heh)
exactly that argument. Alex Martelli counterargued that
exceptions are one area in which we *do* usually care about
isinstance relationships, since that's how we specify which
exceptions to catch.
[1] http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2003-May/160965.html
-- 
Steven Taschuk staschuk@telusplanet.net
"I'm always serious, never more so than when I'm being flippant."
 -- _Look to Windward_, Iain M. Banks