gratuitous new features in 2.0

[Alex Martelli]

"Grant Griffin" <g2 at seebelow.org> wrote in message
news:39A9638D.CAE7308A at seebelow.org...
    [snip]
> It sounds to me like we primarily disagree on how grievous the issue of
> adding new keywords is.  Personally, I don't think it's the worst thing
> in the world. <"Practicality beats purity"; "readability counts">  So

Practicality dictates not breaking good working code.  Python has
managed to avoid new keywords for 6+ years; do you think that Python
source code is unreadable because of that?!

Breaking this excellent track record, particularly for the sake of
a minor, debatable readability improvement to an absolutely marginal
feature, would be a design decision of such abysmal quality as to
defy belief; if it did happen, I would have to opine that meddlesome
aliens have kidnapped our BDFL into their flying saucers, and substituted
him with one of their minions, shaped to his superficial likeness.

I'd MUCH rather the 'marginal feature' in question be placed in a
function (or method), but if it absolutely HAS to be exposed as an
extra feature of the print statement, then the "print>>" blotch is
still heads and shoulders above the option of breaking good code.


Alex