Damnation!

[Michael Hudson]

Moshe Zadka <moshez at math.huji.ac.il> writes:

> On Sat, 20 May 2000, Thomas Malik wrote:
> 
> > Same for me ...
> > I've just convinced our whole department (at a german bank) to use Python
> > instead of Perl. A case - insensitive language won't be acceptable by any of
> > us. So, Guido, should i start looking for another job ...?
> 
> I'm not Guido, but I'll try, for the n-th time, to give an overview.
> Python 1.6a2 is out. 

> In a few months, hopefully, Python 1.6 final will come out.

s/months/weeks/ I thought?  I mean, June 1 was the projected release
date, wasn't it?

> Then, Python 1.7 is planned to take another year. It is still
> unsure, at this stage, whether a Python 1.8 release will be issued. Of
> course, if show-stopping bugs will be found in a released version, a
> new version 1.x.y might be released. The whole 1.x line is firmly commited
> to backwards compatability, modulu changing undocumented behaviour.
> Once Python 1.7 or 1.8 will be released, Py3K development will start. It
> will probably take at least a year, with many design decisions debated on
> various sigs. So, for at least 2.5 years, Python will remain
> case-sensitive.

I have no real comment, except for what Moshe said here, so I'll be
lazy and just quote it.
 
> BTW: Case-insensitivity a show stopper? This boggled me. I mean, case
> sensitivity/insensitivity is the most minor feature of programming
> language. Type declerations, memory management, and even whitespce seem
> like much more earth shaking issues.

It would annoy me; it seems a kind of pointless thing to change.  But
I've used case-insensitive (well, if you're being simplistic)
langauges like Lisp without it causing much problems, so I could
change I guess.

What I *would* like is a more lisp-ish approach to what makes an
identifier - so I can call things "has-name?" or "set-name!".
Wouldn't fit much with Python's other syntax, and would force people
to write operators with spaces around them (but I might consider this
last a good thing...).

dreaming-ly y'rs
m.

-- 
  Darned confusing, unless you have that magic ingredient coffee, of
  which I can pay you Tuesday for a couple pounds of extra-special
  grind today.                           -- John Mitchell, 11 Jan 1999