New Python 3.0 string formatting - really necessary?

[Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch]

On Sat, 20 Dec 2008 22:15:23 -0800, r wrote:

> It would be nice to get a vote together and see what does the average
> pythoneer want? What do they like, What do they dislike. What is the
> state of the Python Union? Does anybody know, Does anybody care? I think
> python is slipping away from it's dominate foothold on the world.
> Google's use of python may be the only thing holding this house of cards
> together. Ruby's "hype" is defiantly growing and unless we strive for
> greatness, python may fail. I think ruby may have their act together a
> little better than us right now. And since Ruby is such a hodge-podge of
> different languages, the __init__ hold is there for many.
> 
> what does joe-python want???

That's not completely irrelevant but I think one of Python's strength is 
that we have a BDFL who decides carefully what he thinks is best for the 
language instead of integrating every random idea some newbie comes up 
with and which might sound useful at first sight.

Python has its quirks but even with things I don't like I often realize 
later it was a wise decision that integrates well into the language 
whereas my ideas for "fixes" of the quirks wouldn't.  "joe-python" most 
often doesn't see the whole picture and demands changes that look easy at 
first sight, but are hard to implement right and efficient or just shifts 
the problem somewhere else where the next "joe-python" trips over it.

Ciao,
	Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch