[Python-ideas] Let’s make escaping in f-literals impossible

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

C Anthony Risinger writes:

 > The only time I personally use a different quote is when it somehow
 > makes the data more amenable to the task at hand. The data! The
 > literal data! Not the expressions I'm conveniently inlining with
 > the help of f-strings.

You do *not* know that yet!  *Nobody* does.  Nobody has yet written an
f-string in production code, let alone read thousands and written
hundreds.  Can you be sure that after you write a couple dozen
f-strings you won't find that such "quote context" is carried over
naturally from the way you write other strings?  (Eg, because "I'm
still in a string" is signaled by the highlighting of the surrounding
stringish text.)

I think the proposed changes to the PEP fall into the "Sometimes never
is better than *right* now" category.  The arguments I've seen so far
are plausible but not founded in experience: it could easily go the
other way, and I don't see potential for true disaster.

 > If I have to water it down for people to find it acceptable (such
 > as creating simpler variables ahead-of-time) I'd probably just keep
 > using .format(...). Because what I have gained with an f-string?

I don't see a problem if you choose not to write f-strings.  Would
other people using that convention be hard for you to *read*?

 > Not just because it's at odds with other languages, but because
 > it's at odds with what the editor is telling the user (free-form
 > expression).

There are no editors that will tell you such a thing yet.

And if you trust an editor that *does* tell you that it's a free-form
expression and use the same kind of quote that delimits the f-string,
you won't actually create a syntax error.  You're merely subject to
the same kind of "problem" that you have if you don't write PEP8
conforming code.

Regards,