[Python-ideas] Rough draft: Proposed format specifier for a thousands separator (discussion moved from python-dev)

[Antoine Pitrou]

Jim Jewett <jimjjewett at ...> writes:
> 
> Do you want to avoid using locale even in the background?
> Do you want to avoid having to set a locale in the program startup?
> Do you want a better default for locale?

As Guido said, a problem is that locale relies on shared state. It makes it very
painful to use (any module setting the locale to a value which suits its
semantics can negatively impact other modules or libraries in your application).

But even worse is that the desired locale is not necessarily installed. For
example if I develop an app for French users but it is hosted on an US server,
perhaps the 'fr_FR' locale won't be available at all.