Collin Winter writes: > Sincere question: if these characters aren't needed, why are they > provided?
I already gave a long jargony answer, but maybe this analogy is better: Most of the time automatic line-wrapping gives excellent results, but sometimes you need the newline character to achieve special effects (eg, poetry). Directional controls are similar: used for "special effects" that are none-the-less an everyday part of the language. > From what I can tell by googling, they're needed when, e.g., > Arabic is embedded in an otherwise left-to-right script. No, they are unnecessary; there are algorithms that do a fine job -- for most purposes, but not all. It's the exceptions where the control characters are needed. The Unicode technical committee does not think identifiers are exceptional, and they are experts (including Hebrew and Arabic native speakers, I am sure). _______________________________________________ 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
