On 6/27/2012 3:08 PM, Serhiy Storchaka wrote:
On 27.06.12 14:22, Stefan Behnel wrote:
For comparison, the revival of the "u" string prefix in Py3.3 is a simple
change in the parser grammar that's easy to maintain
And even this simple change has caused unexpected issues (see issues
#15054 and #15096), which were not predicted by the preceding stormy
discussion.
#15054 was mostly not about 'u'.
http://bugs.python.org/issue15096 is about 'u', or rather about the post
discussion extension of 'u' to 'ur'. During the discussion of 'u', I
predicted that adding 'innocuous' 'u' would lead to efforts to add other
things. Adding 'ur' was the first example of that. We are fortunate that
someone decided to test the new feature at the alpha stage. At least the
near fiasco is a lesson.
IMHO, the negative consequences of this change are undervalued.
Another prediction: people who code Python without reading the manual,
at least not for new features, will learn about 'u' somehow (such as by
reading this list) and may do either of the following, both of which are
bad.
1. They will confuse themselves by thinking that 'u' actually means
somethings. They may then confuse others by writing about its supposed
meaning. This might get amusing.
2. They will use 'u' in Python 3 only code, thereby making it
incompatible with 3.2-, even if it otherwise would not be.
These two actions will reinforce each other.
--
Terry Jan Reedy
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