PEP 285: Adding a bool type

[Erik Max Francis]

Guido van Rossum wrote:

> The main effect this had was to confuse the died-in-the-wool
> programmers; it didn't make any difference for the newbies because
> they had to learn the concepts anyway.  When you come in with a
> blank mind it doesn't matter if a particular concept is called
> "variable" or "waffle" -- you have to learn a new meaning for an
> existing word either way, and the previous meaning you knew for the
> word is barely relevant in the new context.

Couldn't agree more; I mentioned something substantially similar in my
reply.  Inventing new, non-standard terminology in order to be "simpler"
is rarely helpful; it doesn't substantially help newbies, and it only
serves to confuse people actually involved.

As a case of this kind of thinking taken to outrageous extreme, consider
the Mathematics in the Common Tongue Web site:

	http://www.earth360.com/mathtongue.html

When the idea is taken to this kind of bizarre level, the end result
almost feels like one of those antiknowledge languages you read about in
science fiction, like Newspeak.

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