PEP 3131: Supporting Non-ASCII Identifiers

[Hendrik van Rooyen]

<r,,,y at y,,,.com> wrote:

>(2) Several posters have claimed non-native english speaker
>status to bolster their position, but since they are clearly at
>or near native-speaker levels of fluency, that english is not
>their native language is really irrelevant.

I dispute the irrelevance strongly  - I am one of the group referred
to, and I am here on this group because it works for me - I am not
aware of an Afrikaans python group - but even if one were to 
exist - who, aside from myself, would frequent it? - would I have
access to the likes of the effbot, Steve Holden, Alex Martelli, 
Irmen de Jongh, Eric Brunel, Tim Golden, John Machin, Martin
v Loewis, the timbot and the Nicks, the Pauls and other Stevens? 

- I somehow doubt it.

Fragmenting this resource into little national groups based
on language would be silly, if not downright stupid, and it seems 
to me just as silly to allow native identifiers without also 
allowing native reserved words, because you are just creating 
a mess that is neither fish nor flesh if you do.

And the downside to going the whole hog would be as follows:

Nobody would even want to look at my code if I write
"terwyl" instead of 'while', and "werknemer" instead of
"employee" - so where am I going to get help, and how, 
once I am fully Python fit, can I contribute if I insist on 
writing in a splinter language?

And while the Mandarin language group could be big enough
to be self sustaining, is that true of for example Finnish?

So I don't think my opinion on this is irrelevant just because
I miss spent my youth reading books by Pelham Grenfell
Wodehouse, amongst others.

And I also don't regard my own position as particularly unique
amongst python programmers that don't speak English as
their native language

- Hendrik