[Python-Dev] Hacking print (was: Replacement for print in Python3.0)

[Michael Chermside]

Bill Hanssen writes:
> I think the "-ln"
> variants made familiar by Pascal and Java were a bad idea, on a par
> with the notion of a split between "text" and "binary" file opens.

It's a bit off topic, but it wasn't the languages that introduced the
difference between "text" and "binary" files. Pascal defined a difference
between "text" and "record" files because the operating systems of the
time had two distinct file types. Java initially had only one type
(binary files which got automagically converted to a stream of unicode
characters) and later modified things to allow manual control of the
encoding because "modern" operating systems (like Windows) have two
distinct file types.

Don't blame the language designers, blame the OS folks.

-- Michael Chermside