Why prefer != over <> for Python 3.0?

[Colin J. Williams]

kwitters at telenet.be wrote:
> I don't know if this is the right place to discuss the death of <> in
> Python 3.0, or if there have been any meaningful discussions posted
> before (hard to search google with '<>' keyword), but why would anyone
> prefer the comparison operator != over <>???
> 
> I've written an article about it to try and save this nice "is not
> equal" operator, located at http://dewitters.koonsolo.com/python_neq.html
> 
> Please set it straight in 3.0, and if not, convince me with a good
> reason of doing so, so that I can live with it and don't have to spend
> the rest of my life in 2.x ;).

Algol 60 had no such operator.
Algol-W had (not)= [(not) was a negative 
symbol, not on our current keyboard]
Simula 67 introduced <>
Pascal uses <> [Pascal is still 
available - http://www.freepascal.org/]
C uses != 
[http://cermics.enpc.fr/~ts/C/CONCEPT/expressions.html#rel]

I prefer <> but I feel that it's better 
not to have two ways of representing
not equal.

The powers that be have chosen !=.  I 
accept this on the grounds that current
languages seem to have nade that choice.

Colin W.