PEP 3131: Supporting Non-ASCII Identifiers

[Neil Hodgson]

Eric Brunel:

> Have you ever tried to enter anything more than 2 or 3 characters like 
> that? 

    No, only for examples. Lengthy texts are either already available 
digitally or are entered by someone skilled in the language.

 > I did. It just takes ages. Come on: are you really serious about
> entering *identifiers* in a *program* this way?

    Are you really serious about entry of identifiers in another 
language  being a problem?

    Most of the time your identifiers will be available by selection 
from an autocompletion list or through cut and paste. Less commonly, 
you'll know what they sound like. Even more rarely you'll only have a 
printed document. Each of these can be handled reasonably considering 
their frequency of occurrence. I have never learned Japanese but have 
had to deal with Japanese text at a couple of jobs and it isn't that big 
of a problem. Its certainly not "virtually impossible" nor is there 
"absolutely no way of entering the word" (売り場). I think you should 
moderate your exaggerations.

    Is there a realistic scenario in which foreign character set 
identifier entry would be difficult for you?

    Neil