[Python-3000] Support for PEP 3131

[Ka-Ping Yee]

On Sun, 10 Jun 2007, [ISO-8859-1] "Martin v. Löwis" wrote:
> > That describes me perfectly.  I am self-interested to
> > the extent that my employers just pay me to write
> > working Python code, so I want the simplicity of ASCII
> > only.
>
> What I don't understand is why you can't simply continue
> to do so, with PEP 3131 implemented?
>
> If you have no need for accessing the NIS database,
> or for TLS sockets, you just don't use them - no
> need to make these features optional in the library.

Because the existence of these library modules does not make it
impossible to reliably read source code.  We're talking about
changing the definition of the language here, which is deeper
than adding or removing things in the library.

Python currently provides to everyone the restriction of
identifiers to a character set that everyone knows and trusts.
Many of us want Python to continue to provide such restriction
for those who want identifiers to be in a character set they
know and trust.  This is not incompatible with your desire to
permit alternative character sets, as long as Python offers an
option to make that choice.  We can continue to discuss the
details of how that choice is expressed, but this general idea
is a solution that would give us both what we want.

Can we agree on that?


-- ?!ng