[Guido]
> The print statement harks back to ABC and even
> (unvisual) Basic. Out with it!
[Barry]
> I have to strongly disagree.
As would I. From observing recent discussions here, it would be helpful if
everyone else that agrees could come up with a list (a wiki page on python.org,
perhaps?) of simple, to-the-point, reasons why losing print is a bad idea.
Once Guido sees the huge list of reasons in favour of keeping it, versus the
one or two reasons against it (and ruminates on it while 2.5 through 2.9 are
released) I'm sure he'll see reason.
FWIW, I wouldn't really care if >> or the trailing comma was lost.
[Barry]
> The print statement is simple, easy to understand, and
> easy to use. For use cases like debugging or the interactive
> interpreter [...] I think it's hard to beat the useability
> of print with a write() function, even if builtin.
ISTM that Barry nails the key reasons here. One of the real strengths of
Python is that it can be used in a wide range of applications, many of which
don't need to be burdened with a complex logging strategy, don't have a GUI,
aren't inside a web browser, and so on.
"print" is the best example I can think of for "practicality beats purity".
Writing to stdout is as common in the code I write as loops - it's worth
keeping such basic functionality as elegant, simple, easy to understand, and
easy to use as possible. (This is certainly my motiviation, not any concern
about backwards compatibility).
With standard English keyboards, at least, the '(' and ')' keys are also
inconvenient to type, compared to lower-case English characters. Fundamental
actions like writing to stdout deserve simplicity.
=Tony.Meyer
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