PEP 3131: Supporting Non-ASCII Identifiers

[sjdevnull at yahoo.com]

Ben wrote:
> On May 15, 11:25 pm, Stefan Behnel <stefan.behnel-n05... at web.de>
> wrote:
> > Rene Fleschenberg wrote:
> > > Javier Bezos schrieb:
> > >>> But having, for example, things like open() from the stdlib in your code
> > >>> and then o:ffnen() as a name for functions/methods written by yourself is
> > >>> just plain silly. It makes the code inconsistent and ugly without
> > >>> significantly improving the readability for someone who speaks German
> > >>> but not English.
> > >> Agreed. I always use English names (more or
> > >> less :-)), but this is not the PEP is about.
> >
> > > We all know what the PEP is about (we can read). The point is: If we do
> > > not *need* non-English/ASCII identifiers, we do not need the PEP. If the
> > > PEP does not solve an actual *problem* and still introduces some
> > > potential for *new* problems, it should be rejected. So far, the
> > > "problem" seems to just not exist. The burden of proof is on those who
> > > support the PEP.
> >
> > The main problem here seems to be proving the need of something to people who
> > do not need it themselves. So, if a simple "but I need it because a, b, c" is
> > not enough, what good is any further prove?
> >
> > Stefan
>
> For what it's worth, I can only speak English (bad English schooling!)
> and I'm definitely +1 on the PEP. Anyone using tools from the last 5
> years can handle UTF-8

The falsehood of the last sentence is why I'm moderately against this
PEP.  Even examples within this thread don't display correctly on
several of the machines I have access too (all of which are less than
5 year old OS/browser environments).  It strikes me a similar to the
arguments for quoted-printable in the early 1990s, claiming that
everyone can view it or will be able to soon--and even a decade
_after_ "everyone can deal with latin1 just fine" it was still causing
massive headaches.