The problem is that if you allow too many of these inconsistencies, then you're almost destined to run into one of them. It's better to eliminate them while you still can.
Let's see. The first mistake is of course that the object identity operator is called "is", and should have been called something like "is-same-object-as".
Then, a is-same-object-as b, for integers could raise an error, as a and b are not objects.
If that's not desired (for some reason), then a is-same-object-as b could indeed return false in all cases, and that would at least be more consistent than returning true for integers smaller than some number and false otherwise.
I don't expect that's a language I'd enjoy. You may prefer Objective-C over Python.
> a is-same-object-as b, for integers could raise an error, as a and b are not objects.
That would be a greater inconsistency than the minor additional optimization for small integers. It's a Java performance optimization that has crept into the way you think about the data, impacting much more of your program than just "is-a-long-name".
