PEP 3131: Supporting Non-ASCII Identifiers

[Stefan Behnel]

Anton Vredegoor wrote:
>> In summary, this PEP proposes to allow non-ASCII letters as
>> identifiers in Python. If the PEP is accepted, the following
>> identifiers would also become valid as class, function, or
>> variable names: Löffelstiel, changé, ошибка, or 売り場
>> (hoping that the latter one means "counter").
> 
> I am against this PEP for the following reasons:
> 
> It will split up the Python user community into different language or
> interest groups without having any benefit as to making the language
> more expressive in an algorithmic way.


We must distinguish between "identifiers named in a non-english language" and
"identifiers written with non-ASCII characters".

While the first is already allowed as long as the transcription uses only
ASCII characters, the second is currently forbidden and is what this PEP is about.

So, nothing currently keeps you from giving names to identifiers that are
impossible to understand by, say, Americans (ok, that's easy anyway).

For example, I could write

  def zieheDreiAbVon(wert):
      return zieheAb(wert, 3)

and most people on earth would not have a clue what this is good for. However,
someone who is fluent enough in German could guess from the names what this does.

I do not think non-ASCII characters make this 'problem' any worse. So I must
ask people to restrict their comments to the actual problem that this PEP is
trying to solve.

Stefan