Devanagari int literals [was Re: Should non-security 2.7 bugs be fixed?]

[Rustom Mody]

On Monday, July 20, 2015 at 4:43:57 AM UTC+5:30, Terry Reedy wrote:
> On 7/19/2015 3:32 AM, Rustom Mody wrote:
> 
> > Unix bc:
> > $ bc
> > bc 1.06.95
> > Copyright 1991-1994, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> > This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
> > For details type `warranty'.
> > 4+5
> > 9
> > obase=8
> > 4+5
> > 11
> >
> > IOW bc has two (global) variables ibase and obase for input and output base.
> > If you dont provide these as settable you hardwire them at 10 (8/16 in some
> > assembly languages)¹
> >
> > Hopefully you will agree that python is more full-featured than bc and should
> > subsume bc functionality?
> 
> Nice try ;-) However, I think is not especially relevant.  I do not 
> believe that Guido would agree that bc should govern python design. Do 
> *you* really think that?  Python is fundamentally a general purpose 
> batch-mode language.  Interactive mode is secondary and generally 
> subservient to writing real programs.  I know that he has said that he 
> is not inclined to add additional interactive-mode-only features to Python.

We will have to agree to disagree then.

I wrote this in 2012 (that is to say not in context of this discussion):
http://blog.languager.org/2012/10/functional-programming-lost-booty.html

in which I list an REPL as one of the factors that distinguish a modern, 
powerful v hi-level language from stodgy old-fashioned blub languages.

Regarding your earlier points about idle, I think you are (to use a traditional 
OS metaphor) mixing up policy with mechanism.
Policy: Having a REPL (things like Idle)
Mechanism: How exactly its bundled

eg in pythonland python the interpreter and the interactive version are the same
executable functioning in different modes
In other languages (haskell has ghci, ruby has irb) the interactive interpreter
is a different program (just a thin wrapper) on the main interpreter (compiler
for haskell)
Likewise in debian (ubuntu) vs windows the bundling is v different.
In debian python comes for free and the system would not work without it but tkinter, idle etc need to be installed with their dependencies
In windows, one needs to install one bundle and one gets the whole lot...

Of course as recently discussed, it may be time to have ipython replace vanilla
python and therefore break that off from the core. 

These are (to me) minor points compared to the existence/non-existence of  an interactive interpreter.