New Python 3.0 string formatting - really necessary?

[Aaron Brady]

On Dec 22, 11:40 am, r <rt8... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 22, 8:58 am, walterbyrd <walterb... at iname.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Dec 21, 12:28 pm, Bruno Desthuilliers
>
> > <bdesth.quelquech... at free.quelquepart.fr> wrote:
> > > Strange enough,
> > > no one seems to complain about PHP or Ruby's performances...
>
> > A few years back, there was a certain amount of chest thumping, when
> > python/django easily beat ror in a benchmark test. Now that ruby is
> > faster, I guess speed is no big issue.
>
> > By the same reasoning, python advocates used to sneer at php because
> > php constantly broke backward compatibility. Now that python does it,
> > breaking backward compatibility is no big deal. I guess unicode
> > support was not that important, until python caught up to perl.
>
> > I guess, the way it works is: you first assume that python is
> > superior, then you figure out why.
>
> I think what walter is saying is the loyalty is gone.
>
> community:
> """If python makes great, if it doesn't, why should "i" care if it
> goes down the toilet?  i just move to ruby"""
>
> Were is your loyalty pyfans?, Has the fight left you???

Point: It is not rational for the crew to go down with the ship, only
the captain.

Case: Loyalty is a complex emotion, and it's not clear that it's our
highest priority, or that it's anyone's.

I want to use a good language.  If Python stops being good (that is, a
good version of Python stops being maintained and supported), then
I'll stop using it, and that's the rational thing to do.

Just to be fair, though, it's (contraction) not obviously irrational
for a captain to go down with the ship.  The mentality, commitments,
and principles that it lets him keep and make may be better on the
whole in the long run for captains, crews, and ships, only if they
have that consequence.  That is, captains that will go down with the
ship are better captains of ships, and captains that have the capacity
to betray, forge, or abandon principles make worse captains; therefore
a good captain will go down, and can't change his mind.

However, as critics and fans of Python, our actions don't really have
the same consequences as the captains.  That is, it is not rational
for the crew to go down with the ship, only the captain.