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

[Terry Reedy]

Greg Ewing wrote:
> Antoine Pitrou wrote:
> 
>> A program often formatting numbers the same way can factor that into 
>> dedicated helpers:
> 
> If that's an acceptable thing to do on a daily basis,
> then we don't need format strings at all.

Given that the helper functions *use* format strings, or could even be a 
method bound to a format string, that seems like an odd claim ;-).