[justinmk]

> another language where int division works the "old fashioned way"; for them (me) this change is counter-productive ... It is a great change for programming novices

Douglas Crockford made a point in a recent interview[1] (not the first time, I'm sure) that this is exactly the wrong reason to keep doing things "the way it's always been". Other examples he mentions: line endings (CR/LF), integer overflow, short vs long. Big vs little endian would be another obvious example.

Fred Brooks (Mythical Man Month) calls this "accidental complexity".

> [novices are] only part of Python's audience, and probably won't be the longest-lived part

By definition. But, it's not really a good use of anyone's time to be dealing with truncation in a time when it no longer has any reason to be the default except historical accident.

[1] http://hanselminutes.com/396/bugs-considered-harmful-with-do...