PEP 3131: Supporting Non-ASCII Identifiers

[rurpy at yahoo.com]

"Hendrik van Rooyen" <mail at microcorp.co.za> wrote in message
news:mailman.7700.1179242569.32031.python-list at python.org...

> <rurpy at yahoo.com> wrote:

[I fixed the broken attribution in your quote]

> >(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 didn't say that your (as a fluent but non-native English
speaker) views are irrelevant, only that when you say,
"I am a native speaker of Afrikaans and I don't want non-
ascii identifiers" it shouldn't carry any more weight
that if I (as a native English speaker) say the same
thing.  (But I wouldn't of course :-).

My point was that this entire discussion is by English
speakers and that a consesious by such a group, that
non-english identfiers are bad, is neither surprising nor
legitimate.

> - 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.

It already is fragmented.  There is a Japanese Python users
group, complete with discussion forums, all in Japanese, not
English. Another poster said he was going to bring up this
issue on a French language discussion group.

How can you possibly propose that some authority should
decide what language a group of people should use to
discuss a common interest?!

> 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?

First "while" is a keyword and will remain "while" so
that has nothing to do with anything.

If nobody want to look at your code, it is not
the use of "werknemer" that is the cause.  If you used
that as an identifier that I assume you decided
your code was exclusively of interest to Afrikaans
speakers.  Otherwise use you would have used English
for for that indentifier.  The point is that *you*
are in the best position to decide that, not the
designers of the 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

Like I said, that English is not your native language is
irrelevant -- what matters is that you now speak English
fluently.  Thus you are an English speaker argueing that
excluding non-english identifiers is not a problem.