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Author zero.piraeus
Recipients barry, ncoghlan, rhettinger, skrah, vstinner, zero.piraeus
Date 2013-10-16.12:16:58
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Message-id <1381925819.74.0.698401491697.issue19266@psf.upfronthosting.co.za>
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'Ignore' and 'suppress' are not synonyms:

https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Asuppress

> forcibly put an end to.
> "the rising was savagely suppressed"
> synonyms: subdue, repress, crush, quell, quash, squash, stamp out

https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Asuppress

> refuse to take notice of or acknowledge; disregard intentionally.
> "he ignored her outraged question"
> synonyms: disregard, take no notice of, pay no attention to [...]

I know that ncoghlan and rhettinger (and maybe others) are annoyed by what they see as bikeshedding, but there is a genuine issue here. To summarize the objection raised on python-dev, the problem is that this:

    with ignore(SomeException):
        do_something()
        do_something_else()

... is easily misunderstood as ignoring every occurrence of SomeException throughout the with-statement. 

If you understand how context managers work, it's not difficult to see why that's not the case, but the name strongly suggests the incorrect reading over the correct one.

I don't think 'suppress' is perfect. At the risk of further enraging those who are already tired of this discusion, I'll re-propose 'silence', which IMO comes closest to describing what is actually going on:

https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Asilence

> cause to become silent; prohibit or prevent from speaking.
> "the team's performance silenced their critics"
> synonyms: quiet, hush, shush

I also quite like 'quash' from the list of 'suppress' synonyms above, but that's probably just because it's a nice word to say :-)
History
Date User Action Args
2013-10-16 12:16:59zero.piraeussetrecipients: + zero.piraeus, barry, rhettinger, ncoghlan, vstinner, skrah
2013-10-16 12:16:59zero.piraeussetmessageid: <1381925819.74.0.698401491697.issue19266@psf.upfronthosting.co.za>
2013-10-16 12:16:59zero.piraeuslinkissue19266 messages
2013-10-16 12:16:58zero.piraeuscreate