gratuitous new features in 2.0

[Aahz Maruch]

In article <cphf89v19d.fsf at cj20424-a.reston1.va.home.com>,
Guido van Rossum  <guido at beopen.com> wrote:
>
>When you are considering an extension for the print statement, it's
>not right to add a function or method that adds a new feature in one
>dimension (where the output goes) but takes away in another dimension
>(spaces between items, and the choice of trailing newline or not).  We
>could add a whole slew of methods or functions to deal with the
>various cases but that seems to add more confusion than necessary, and
>would only make sense if we were to deprecate the print statement
>altogether.
>
>I feel that this debate is really about whether print should have been
>a function or method rather than a statement.  If you are in the
>function camp, of course adding special syntax to the existing print
>statement is not something you like.  I suspect the objection to the
>new syntax comes mostly from people who already think that the print
>statement was a bad idea.  Am I right?

I've seen at least one person who thinks print-as-statement is a Bad
Idea, but I'm certainly not one of them.  I agree that there's something
simple and magical about

>>> print 1+1
2
>>> total = 20
>>> print "Total is:", total
20

for a new programmer.  I started out with BASIC, myself, and while I
quickly graduated to and became a convert to Pascal, I think that simple
magic is a necessary ingredient for getting people excited about
programming.

I just think this simple magic should be restricted to new programmers
and -- to a lesser extent -- kept as a convenience for experienced
programmers.  I *don't* think it should be made more powerful (and
therefore complicated); while I don't expect it to change, I could make
a case that allowing the trailing comma should never have happened.

I think it is reasonable that non-simple magic require a function call.
In essence, I think I'm applying your principles more rigorously than
you choose to; that's your call, in the end.

But to repeat the point I've made continuously in our private e-mail, I
think it's a Bad Idea to make a change to the core language on such
short notice.

>The first syntax is more Pythonic because it's an extension of an
>existing Python feature.  The typical sequence of explanation to a
>newbie would go as follows:
>
>  To print data, use "print item, ...".  Oh, it goes to a file named
>  sys.stdout.  If you want it to go elsewhere, e.g. to sys.stderr, use
>  this extension: print >>sys.stdout, item, ...".
>
>With any of the function alternatives, this would become:
>
>  To print data, use "print item, ...".  Oh, it goes to a file named
>  sys.stdout.  If you want it to go elsewhere, e.g. to sys.stderr, use
>  the following completemy different syntax:
>  "sys.stdout.writeln(item, ...)".

The problem with this is that it assumes understanding of a "file".
That's more advanced than I see the primary usage of print for.
--
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