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[Python-Dev] proposal: add basic money type to the standard library

M.-A. Lemburg mal@lemburg.com
Tue, 26 Feb 2002 22:32:31 +0100 
Guido van Rossum wrote:
> 
> > A decimal would do as well, I suppose, at least in
> > terms of storing the raw value. The reason for trying
> > to come up with a monetary type is to make operations between
> > monetary values having two different currencies illegal.
> > Coercion between two of those would always have to be
> > made explicit (for obvious reasons).
> 
> Are you sure you're trying to solve a real problem here?  There are
> lots of operations on monetary values that make no sense (try
> multiplying two amounts of money).

Indeed, monetary types solve different problems than decimal 
types. Financial applications do have a need for these kind
of implicit error checks.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
CEO eGenix.com Software GmbH
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