PEP 3131: Supporting Non-ASCII Identifiers

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, 15 May 2007 12:17:09 +0200, René Fleschenberg wrote:

> Steven D'Aprano schrieb:
>> How is that different from misreading "disk_burnt = True" as "disk_bumt
>> = True"? In the right (or perhaps wrong) font, like the ever-popular
>> Arial, the two can be visually indistinguishable. Or "call" versus
>> "cal1"?
> 
> That is the wrong question. The right question is: Why do you want to
> introduce *more* possibilities to do such mistakes? Does this PEP solve
> an actual problem, and if so, is that problem big enough to be worth the
> introduction of these new risks and problems?

But they aren't new risks and problems, that's the point. So far, every 
single objection raised ALREADY EXISTS in some form or another. There's 
all this hysteria about the problems the proposed change will cause, but 
those problems already exist. When was the last time a Black Hat tried to 
smuggle in bad code by changing an identifier from xyz0 to xyzO?


 
> I think it is not. I think that the problem only really applies to very
> isolated use-cases. 

Like the 5.5 billion people who speak no English.


> So isolated that they do not justify a change to
> mainline Python. If someone thinks that non-ASCII identifiers are really
> needed, he could maintain a special Python branch that supports them. I
> doubt that there would be alot of demand for it.

Maybe so. But I guarantee with a shadow of a doubt that if the change 
were introduced, people would use it -- even if right now they say they 
don't want it.



-- 
Steven.