Multibyte Character Surport for Python

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Alex" == Alex Martelli <aleax at aleax.it> writes:

    Alex> OTOH, I think identifiers have a better track record.  Yes,
    Alex> a fraction of them are unhelpful or (more rarely) actively
    Alex> misleading -- more often, however, i find them quite
    Alex> informative and helpful in understanding what's going on in
    Alex> code.

In fact, I suspect you're saying something stronger than "more often,"
more like "the great majority."  However, this is less true in code
written by Japanese; it is fairly often true that English vocabulary
plus Japanese syntax leads to something actively misleading.  I agree
with you about hiding comments, but occasionally such identifiers are
disentangled by seeing a more extensive comment written in the same
non-English syntax.

I suspect that your argument about usefulness of English identifiers
is not at all robust outside of native speakers of European languages.

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
 My nostalgia for Icon makes me forget about any of the bad things.  I don't
have much nostalgia for Perl, so its faults I remember.  Scott Gilbert c.l.py