--- Josiah Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I hate to make a decision by majority rule, but I > > think there is the argument that you need to weigh > the > > population of ascii-literate people vs. > > ascii-illiterate people. > > That's a very poor criteria, as not everyone in the > world is a potential > programmer (despite what the BASIC folks tried to > do).
I didn't think that I needed to call out the criteria for both groups that potential Python programmers need aptitude/desire to learn programming in general, but of course you're correct. > > Since the PEP does not discuss the localization of > every name in the > Python standard library (nor the builtins, __magic__ > methods, etc.), > people are *still* going to need to learn the latin > alphabet, at least > as much to distinguish and use Python keywords, > builtins, and the > standard library. > I agree with that 100%. Unless you internationlize Python completely for certain languages [1], I think anybody coming to Py3K, even with PEP 3131 accepted, will still need first semester familiarity with English, or at least an English-like language, to be able to use Python effectively. In certain parts of the United States we have the concept of "restaurant Spanish" that native English speakers need to learn when they wait tables. I think there's something like "Python English" that you need to learn to start writing Python, and it's a pretty small subset of the whole language, but the alphabet's a pretty key part of it. Cheers, Steve [1] - ...but regarding fully internationalizing Python in Asia, see this post from Ryan Ginstrom (Japanese-to-English translator): http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2007-June/443862.html ____________________________________________________________________________________ Get your own web address. Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/?p=BESTDEAL _______________________________________________ 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
