unicode as valid naming symbols

[Antoon Pardon]

On 27-03-14 17:22, Ian Kelly wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 27, 2014 at 9:28 AM, Mark H Harris <harrismh777 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Do you think that the ability to write this would be an improvement?
>>>
>>> import ⌺
>>> ⌚ = ⌺.╩░
>>> ⑥ = 5*⌺.⋨⋩
>>> ❹ = ⑥ - 1
>>> ♅⚕⚛ = [⌺.✱✳**⌺.❇*❹{⠪|⌚.∣} for ⠪ in ⌺.⣚]
>>> ⌺.˘˜¨´՛՜(♅⚕⚛)
>>
>>    Steven, you're killing me here; argument by analogy does not work!
> [  ------ 8< ---------- ]
> One of the things that Python is widely known for is its readability.
> Allowing symbols such as √ to denote identifiers may be quite
> expressive and appreciable to the person writing the code. However it
> damages readability considerably, as seen in Steven's example above.
> Personally I'm not interested in having to maintain another
> programmer's code that arbitrarily uses ⌚ as a timer function, ╩ as
> intersection or ░ as a matrix constructor.

I don't find Steven's example convincing. Sure it can be used in a way
that damages readability considerably however lots of things in python
can be abused in a way that damages readability considerably.

That you are not interested in having to maintain someone's code who
would use such symbols is irrelevant. IIRC people have used the exact
same kind of argument against decorators and the if-else operator.

It seems we are all consenting adults until someone doesn't like the
idea how it might influence his job. In that case it shouldn't be
allowed.

-- 
Antoon Pardon