Yet another Python textbook

[Chris Angelico]

On Thu, Nov 22, 2012 at 4:03 AM, Colin J. Williams <cjw at ncf.ca> wrote:
> On 20/11/2012 4:00 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
>> To the OP: jmf has an unnatural hatred of Python 3.3 and PEP 393
>> strings. Take no notice; the rest of the world sees this as a huge
>> advantage. Python is now in a VERY small group of languages (I'm aware
>> of just one other) that have absolutely proper Unicode handling *and*
>> efficient string handling.
>>
>> ChrisA
>>
> It's interesting to see that someone else finds the format function to be a
> pain.  Perhaps the problem lies with the documentation.

Hang on, what? I'm not sure where the format function comes in. I was
referring to the underlying representation.

That said, though, I'm just glad that %-formatting is staying. It's an
extremely expressive string formatting method, and exists in many
languages (thanks to C's heritage). Pike's version is insanely
powerful, Python's is more like C's, but all three are compact and
convenient.

str.format(), on the other hand, is flexible. It strikes me as rather
more complicated than a string formatting function needs to be, but
that may be a cost of its flexibility.

ChrisA