[Python-Dev] *Simpler* string substitutions

[Alex Martelli]

On Friday 21 June 2002 03:56 pm, Guido van Rossum wrote:
	...
> You say that the use base is biased against featuritis.  Yet the user
> base is the largest source of new feature requests and proposals.  How
> do you reconcile these?  

I hypothesized that, because of self-selection effects, Python's user based 
(particularly on Python-Dev and in Python-only firms) is biased against 
featurities _when compared_ to the general population, which (I opine)
includes a wider proportion of people who don't particularly mind a language
having many redundant features.  There is obviously nothing that needs to be 
"reconciled" between this hypothesized sample-bias and the observation
that requests for features come more from the user base than from (who
else would you expect them to come FROM -- people who've never HEARD
about Python...?-).  So, you're either joking or subject to a common and 
quite understandable "statistical fallacy".  Never forget Bayes's 
Theorem...!-)

> You yourself pleaded for PEP 246 just an hour
> ago.  Surely that's a big honking new feature!

I prefer to think of it as a framework that lets most type-casts, type-tests, 
special purpose type-conversion methods, and the like, be avoided WITHOUT
adding a zillion little ad-hoc features.  But of course you could choose to
view it differently:-).


Alex