Increasing the diversity of people who write Python (was: Benefits of unicode identifiers)

[Rick Johnson]

On Thursday, November 23, 2017 at 9:57:12 PM UTC-6, Ben Finney wrote:
[...]
> This is a necessary consequence of increasing the diversity
> of people able to program in Python: people will express
> ideas originating in their own language, in Python code.
> For that diversity to increase, we English-fluent folk will
> necessarily become a smaller proportion of the programming
> community than we are today. That might be uncomfortable
> for us, but it is a necessary adaptation the community
> needs to undergo.

Will your heroic crusade to bring equality to the shire also
include Python standard library modules written in languages
other than English? If so, then you'll need to contact
Guido, as PEP8 will require some editing.

Speaking of GvR... 

And even if you did managed to bring multilingualism to
Python scripts and std-lib modules, wouldn't such
"diversity" be merely symbolic?

Hmm, because, when we consider the make-up of pydev (aka:
nothing but English speaking dudes) we realize that there
really isn't any diversity at all. At least, not where it
matters. (aka: where the decision are being made)

Furthermore, if we are to march headlong onto the glorious
battlefields of diversity and equality, for the sake of all
else, then, why should Guido's position be off limits? I
mean, sure, he may a brilliant man. But he's surely not the
most brilliant man on this planet, is he?

And with that liberating thought in mind, may i offer an
excerpt, for your intellectual consumption, from one of the
most famous documents of all time?

    (emphasis mine)

    "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long
    established should not be changed for light and transient
    causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shewn, that
    [humankind] are more disposed to _suffer_ while evils are
    _sufferable_, than to right themselves by abolishing the
    forms to which they are "accustomed"; but when a ~long~
    train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the
    same object, evinces a _design_ to reduce them under
    absolute *DESPOTISM* -- It is their *RIGHT*! It is their
    *DUTY*! -- to throw off such government and to provide new
    guards for their future security"
    
    ...Declaration of Independence: July 4, 1776

I'm of the opinion that diversity is fine, so long as you
don't make the fatal mistake of "lopping off your nose to
spite your face".

Take, for example, the accommodations our societies offer
for handicapped people -- from wheel chair ramps, to
reserved front-row parking spaces, to widened doorways,
etc... -- these accommodations do *NOT*, in any way,
undermine the accessability of healthy people who also utilize
these same public spaces. In fact, the worst consequence of
these accommodations might be that you and i must walk a few
more steps from our car to the market.

Big deal!

But what you are suggesting is not so much an
_accommodation_, as it is a fundamental fissure in our
ability to communicate, one that will fracture the community
far more than it is today. It would be as foolish as
mandating that everyone must have their legs lopped-off, so
that all will be "equal".

Yes, diversity is great! But only when it welcomes outsiders
without undermining the practical cohesiveness of the wider
community. And if the result of your little "inclusivity
project" is merely the replacement of N domestic community
members with N foreign community members, foreigners who's
regional dialects will muck-up the communication process,
then it seems to me that what you have gained is merely a
fulfillment of your _own_ emotional needs, at the expense of
all.

In conclusion. 

While a wise student of knowledge recognizes that:

    (1) social groups who have waxed into a homogenous block
    actually undermine themselves, because they lack the
    essential diversity of ideas required to see beyond the
    walls of their own "box", and the confirmation bias that
    infests such societies, will ensure that such a community is
    an evolutionary dead end.

The same student _also_ recognizes that:

    (2) a society which resembles a jig-saw-puzzle dumped
    haphazardly on the floor, lacks the essential _cohesiveness_
    required to maintain a strong sense of _community_, a sense
    which allows multiple individuals to work towards a common
    goal, in manner this is both practical and efficient.

Something to think about.