PEP 3131: Supporting Non-ASCII Identifiers
"Martin v. Löwis"
martin at v.loewis.de
Thu May 17 07:59:09 EDT 2007
> Consequently, Python's keywords and even the standard library can
> exist with names being "just symbols" for many people.
I already told that on the py3k list: Until a week ago, I didn't know
why "pass" was chosen for the "no action" statement - with all my
English knowledge, I still could not understand why the opposite
of "fail" should mean "no action".
Still, I have been using "pass" for more than 10 years now, without
ever questioning what it means in English, and I've successfully
used it as a token. Except for the first draft of Das Python-Buch,
where I, from memory, thought the statement should be "skip";
I remembered it had four letters, and meant "go to the next line".
Now I understand it is meaning 12 in Merriam-Webster's dictionary,
a) "to decline to bid, double, or redouble in a card game", or b)
"to let something go by without accepting or taking
advantage of it".
Regards,
Martin
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