[Python-Dev] Lukewarm about range literals

[Guido van Rossum]

> > Charles wrote:
> > When I was a complete Python newbie (back around 1994) I thought that
> > the syntax
> > 
> > l2 = l1[:]
> > 
> > for copying lists looked pretty mysterious and weird.  But after
> > spending some time programming Python I've come to think that the
> > slice syntax is perfectly natural.  Should constructs be banned from
> > the language simply because they might confuse newbies?
> 
> Greg writes:
> Well, it *is* the reason we switched from Perl to Python in our software
> engineering course...

And the original proposal for range literals also came from the
Numeric corner of the world (I believe Paul Dubois first suggested it
to me).

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.pythonlabs.com/~guido/)