Allowing non-ASCII identifiers

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Paul Prescod wrote:
> I wonder if the proposal would be more palatable if it were restricted 
> to 8-bit encodings (what we used to call "code pages"). This is at least 
> a first step in the right direction that would help westerners and could 
> be made to work even if Python were compiled without Unicode support. 
> (it is still possible to compile Python without Unicode isn't it?)

I doubt that it would matter much to those currently opposed; I know
that *I* would be opposed to such a strategy: Allowing arbitrary source
code encoding is no technical challenge whatsoever, and restricting
it to single-byte encodings is an arbitrary restriction.

I believe Guido's concern is more along the lines "How do I call a 
function that has a ł in its name, or a Σ?", or, even, "How can I
find out what the function does, by looking at its name and doc
string, if that is in Polish or Greek?" The fact that there is
a single-byte encoding for either character doesn't really help
here.

So this is about social issues, coding policies, guidelines, etc -
not about technical issues.

Regards,
Martin