[path-PEP] Path inherits from basestring again

[Cliff Wells]

On Sat, 2005-07-30 at 08:01 -0600, Ivan Van Laningham wrote:
> Tony Meyer wrote:
> > 
> > >> (Those who are offended by sweeping generalisations should
> > >> ignore this next bit)
> > [...generalisation bit snipped...]
> > > This is not only bullshit, it's elitist bullshit.  "Windows users are
> > > more clueless than users of posix systems."  Pfui.  Prove it
> > > or withdraw it.
> > 
> > Sigh.  I guess you didn't read or understand the first sentence?
> > 
> 
> Yes, I read and understood it.  Saying "Don't read this if you don't
> want to be offended" doesn't make an offensive statement inoffensive.

While people are loathe to admit it, many stereotypes have some basis in
fact.  The problem is when people extend that to generalize about others
(especially in a negative way).  It's probably true that, as a whole,
most Windows users are quite a bit less knowledgeable about their
systems than *nix users.  This is probably the result of Windows being
quite a bit more user-friendly than *nix systems (another
generalization!), hence demanding less of the user, and also, I suspect,
due to the fact that *nix users tend to be a self-selected crowd (they
chose *nix because they wanted to learn more, and are willing to accept
the larger demand the OS places on them in exchange for the added
flexibility it provides).  Of course, this is impossible to prove, but
anyone who's done support knows where the majority of the silly
questions come from.

That being said, there is a big difference between a Windows *user* and
a Windows *developer*.  I doubt many Windows *users* will be writing
Python code.  I would expect that any Windows *programmer* would have no
problem using "/" as a path delimiter (and in fact, Microsoft APIs have
supported / as a path delimiter since MS-DOS days).  Programmers are as
much a self-selected crowd as the *nix users and this puts them on par
with *nix developers.

> Using __div__ to mean path concatenation is no worse than
> using __add__ to mean string concatenation, and it is both easy to
> remember (once the manual is read) and easy to type.

I agree.  I like overloading as long as it makes sense when I read it.
Python's use of "+" to mean concatenation doesn't make me blink, nor
does overloading "/" in this case.  In fact, I'm surprised it's only now
been proposed.

Regards,
Cliff


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