Damnation!

[Emile van Sebille]

> On Sat, 20 May 2000, Hamish Lawson wrote:
>
> > If case insensitivity was introduced, I propose that there
> > should be a command-line switch to revert to case sensivity for
> > backwards compatibility
<snip>
> Having a delicate syntactic decision decided by a run-time switch
> effectively creates two different languages. Either one will dominate,
in
> which case we can mandate that behaviour from the beginning, or the
two
> will flourish, which means that the Python community will be split.
>

<not specifically directed to command switches, but more so
the general python 1.x vs 3K discussion>

Which may always be an option.  I certainly don't expect the
changes made to py3k to render the language unusable by the
complete range of programmers out there.  It is cp4e after all.

I do expect backward incompatibilities.  If existing software or
packages do not migrate to py3k, and certainly most in-place
functioning software won't for the short term, then there will
be two distinct cpythons.

Choosing *not* to upgrade in this case may make sense to some.
At least the dividing line will be distinct, as opposed to what
happened to VB, where the major release number changed when it
should have been the minor, and compatibility was broken almost
as a matter of course.

I also expect the 1.x line to continue life with bug fixes for
some time as long as there is an active community using it.

If Guido can achieve his vision of making a language that can
both be taught at grade school level, and used as a serious
development platform for modern applications, and if that
requires compromises such that inconsistencies and syntactic
idiosyncrasies are swept from the language, then so be it.

I-never-liked-how-VB-changed-case-to-match-my-last-entry-
-why-couldn't-it-follow-the-def?-le y'rs

Emile van Sebille
emile at fenx.com
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