I respectfully disagree with the conclusion you draw from the same data. I don't think either of us can say anything that will satisfy the other.
--Guido On 5/13/07, Guillaume Proux <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello, > > > > Interestingly, this is *not* a well known fact. I have asked 2 > > > friend-of-mine seasoned Java programmers and they were *amazed* that > > > this is supported. > > Well, maybe we should add it to Python as a secret feature. :-) :-) :-) > > But they also said that: > 1) they wish they would have known earlier... > 2) would start using this immediatly for their own small projects > > > > see e.g. http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200107/msg00254.html > > I imagine the situation there is sufficiently different though; XML is > > data, not code. > > I wish you had enough time to read some of the posts linked from the > above URL. In particular, you can see the viewpoint of some Japanese > people on the ability for them to describe data structures (which is > really a programming concept) in their own words. > > > > I realize you've added a smiley, but please, don't propose new > > features for a release that's already been released. The release > > managers will put you in jail and not let you out until 4.0 has been > > released. :-) > > eheheheh :) > > > Because most people still use systems that have very inadequate tools > > for handling non-ASCII text, especially non-Latin-1 text. For example, > > at work I use Ubuntu, a modern Linux distribution actively supported > > by a company headquartered in South-Africa. Their main market lies > > outside Europe and North America. And yet, there is no standard way to > > enter non-ASCII characters as basic as c-cedilla or u-umlaut; the main > > I also use Ubuntu at home. > Regarding your issue: hum? you can change keyboard layout (I even > think it does affect the current input system immediatly). Also there > is a number of tools like gucharmap > (http://gucharmap.sourceforge.net/shots/shot-003.png) that enables you > to copy paste rare characters. > > > tools I use (Emacs, Firefox and bash running in a terminal emulator) > > all have different input methods, different ideas of the default > > character encoding, and so on. It's a crapshoot whether > > copy-and-pasting even the simplest non-ASCII text (like the name of > > PEP 3131's author :-) between any two of these will work. > > Ubuntu Feisty (and I think Edgy too) default on UTF8 everywhere and I > have never had any issue using French, Japanese and English anywhere. > Windows came to this maturity point about 5-6 years ago. > > > I see program code as a tool for communication between people. Note > > how you & I are using English in this thread even though it is not the > > mother tongue for either of us. So we use English, since we can both > > read and write it reasonably well. This is the *only* way that > > programmers raised in different countries can exchange code at all. > > I *totally* agree with you, you sometimes need to go down to the > lowest common denominator (with tongue in cheek)... But I still do not > understand that you are not happy to see people become more productive > with Python when there is no need of international exchange: the small > (or large) internal application, the throw-away script, the ability > to extend C programs with a scripting language that is respectful of > the native language of the (mostly-non programmer) user etc... > > > gets 1000x better, but we're not there yet -- try translate.google.com > > if you don't believe me.) > > I hope you get bonus points at work for mentioning this one. Believe > it or not, translate.google.com is my friend! > > > > You're stretching my words there. The issue if translation hadn't > > Clearly you could not think of this issue, but I am not stretching > your word. I was just reusing some of the *strong* points you made why > you thought Python was such a great invention of yours (and don't get > me wrong, we all love it!). I was just applying those great points to > this new issue which I believe fully deserve more attention. > > > crossed my mind when I wrote that (over 10 years ago) and the tools > > *really* weren't ready then. And regarding readability, if all the > > The tools are ready now. We live in a mostly fully unicode world now, > and we just agreed in another PEP that the default source encoding of > files will be UTF8... > > > programmers in the world agreed to use broken English, the readability > > of their code to each other would be much better dan als we allemaal > > in onze eigen taal schreven. > > The funny thing is that I can read this sentence very well: my life > was spent surrounded by latin characters. I can even probably > understand it as I can speak some German too. > allesmaal -> Jedesmal -> always > onze -> eine -> its > eigen -> eigen -> own > taal -> sprache -> language > schreven -> schreiben -> write > > My cultural background can help me decipher VERY QUICKLY what you > wrote. But think of the 7 years old Japanese child. They are not > taught latin characters really before they will seriously learn > English... but this is the year I started programming (by copying > french listing of programs for Thomson TO7-70 computers... oh my > god!). > > Regards, > > Guillaume > -- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) _______________________________________________ Python-3000 mailing list Python-3000@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-3000 Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-3000/archive%40mail-archive.com
