why no "do : until"?

[Donn Cave]

Quoth "Alex Martelli" <aleaxit at yahoo.com>:
...
| Sometimes we manage to convince the current one in the endless stream
| of 'enhancers' that Python is actually better off *staying SIMPLE*,
| because its existing mechanisms afford perfectly acceptable solutions;
| sometimes we don't -- them's the breaks.  As long as the slide towards
| more and more language complexity is resisted, by pre-empting the
| formation of a consensus towards complexification, I still think my
| time and energy well spent.

I sure recognize this sentiment, but in recent years have been able
to convince myself that I don't need to join battle every time this
happens.  I guess just because the dam has held for all these years
doesn't mean it can't wash out this winter, and that complacency may
be unwarranted.  But I wonder if we're a lot of people who are used
to having to swim against the current all the time, and now that we
finally have it our way, we don't really get it.  Hence the occasionally
strident arguments.  Tell me if I'm wrong, but I think we really don't
have to worry.  Before the current "while" thread finally dribbles out
to its miserable conclusion, another one will spring up, and hardly a
day will pass when there isn't someone isn't pushing another syntactic
change to the language, but none of it is going anywhere.

If someone wants to contribute something useful to the language,
make it work better in more environments - problem domains, computer
platforms, graphic systems.  Make it smaller or faster.  Improve the
exception interface in an existing component.  Add POSIX signal blocking
to the signal module, make ptys work on another UNIX (or not) platform.
Come up with a network server class system that doesn't put its sockets
into unbuffered stdio, at the cost of 1 byte unbuffered reads.  A multi-
thread dispatch system that works for a socket client, and doesn't rely
on concurrent read and write access to the device to work.  I have to
go, if none of these ideas is up your alley, just ask here and see if
anyone else has an idea.  There is surely something productive left to
be done.

	Donn Cave, donn at u.washington.edu