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

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, 14 Oct 2013 20:48:15 -0700, rusi wrote:

> 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.

And I agree with you! But that's not what John wrote. John called it a 
design screw-up. His very first example was the slow transition to 
Unicode. Not "here's a choice that made sense at the time", but "screw-
up".


-- 
Steven