old Python argument

[Andrew Dalke]

I was delving through the back history of Python and came across
a longish thread in late 1994 about docstrings.  This was just
after they were discussed at the first Python conference.  There were
people who wanted explicit docstring assignment, like

def spam():
  __doc__ =  "blah"

"Is it really that painful to have to write '__doc__ = ' before
your docstring?"

Others who wanted document objects, instead of strings.

Also, one of the reasons against having the change to Python was
because of, and I quote, "the ad hoc nature of the changes."

Argument style sound familiar?

In Guido we trust.  :)

                    Andrew
                    dalke at dalkescientific.com