gratuitous new features in 2.0

[David]

On Sun, 27 Aug 2000 23:53:33 -0400, "Tim Peters" <tim_one at email.msn.com>
wrote:

>To both Unix and DOS users, ">" implies overwrite and ">>" implies append.
>The print semantics are much closer to the latter.  Ditto to the meaning of
>">>" in C++ in an output context.  Using ">" instead would *really* be
>gratuitous novelty.
 
To Windows, Mac and any other GUI user, > implies greater-than
(elementary-school math) and >> is utterly meaningless.
 
For anyone coming from other languages, >> carries various baggage: usually
bit-shifts or other arcane math.
 
There is no way to pronounce >>.
 
The whole thing is stinky, and needs to be reconsidered.  The multitude of
protests should be the very first clue that the idea is damaging to Python.