Python was designed (was Re: Multi-threading in Python vs Java)

[rusi]

On Tuesday, October 15, 2013 8:48:25 AM UTC+5:30, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Oct 2013 12:18:59 -0700, John Nagle wrote:
> 
> >     No, Python went through the usual design screwups.  Look at how
> > painful the slow transition to Unicode was, from just "str" to Unicode
> > strings, ASCII strings, byte strings, byte arrays, 16 and 31 bit
> > character builds, and finally automatic switching between rune widths.
> 
> 
> Are you suggesting that Guido van Rossum wasn't omniscient back in 1991 
> when he first released Python??? OH MY GOD!!! You ought to blog about 
> this, let the world know!!!!

You are making a strawman out of John's statements:

> Python went through the usual design screwups.
> [screwup list which perhaps pinche John most]
> Each of those reflects a design error in the type system which had to be corrected. 

The reasonable interpretation of John's statements is that propriety and even truth is a function of time: It was inappropriate for GvR to have put in unicode in 1990. It was appropriate in 2008.  And it was done. You may call that being-human-not-God. I call that being real.

To have reality time-invariant, would imply for example that Abraham Lincoln was a racist because he use the word 'negro': (see speech
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln_and_slavery#Legal_and_political )

Or that it is ok to do so today.