Py-dea: Streamline string literals now!

[Dominic Binks]

On 12/28/2011 11:36 AM, Rick Johnson wrote:
> On Dec 28, 12:58 am, Steven D'Aprano<steve
> +comp.lang.pyt... at pearwood.info>  wrote:
>> On Tue, 27 Dec 2011 21:34:19 -0800, Rick Johnson wrote:
>
>>> I am also thinking that ANY quote char is a bad choice for string
>>> literal delimiters. Why? Well because it is often necessary to embed
>>> single or double quotes into a string literal. We need to use a
>>> delimiter that is not a current delimiter elsewhere in Python, and also,
>>> is a very rare char. I believe Mr Ewing found that perfect char in his
>>> "Multi-line uber raw string literals!" (Just scroll down a bit at this
>>> link)...
>>
>>>     http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/greg.ewing/python/ideas.html
>>
>> Not surprisingly, you haven't thought this through. I'm sure Greg Ewing
>> has, which is why he hasn't proposed *replacing* string delimiters with
>> his multi-line format. That's why he proposed it as a *statement* and not
>> string-builder syntax.
>>
>> Without an end-delimiter, how do you embed string literals in expressions?
>
> Did you even read what i wrote? And if you did, you missed the point!
>
> My point was... while Greg's idea is nice, it is not the answer.
> HOWEVER, he did find the perfect char, and that char is the pipe! -->
> |
>
> mlstr = |||
> this is a
> multi line sting that is
> delimited by "triple pipes". Or we
> could just 'single pipes' if we like, however, i think
> the "triple pipe' is easier to see. Since the pipe char
> is so rare in Python source, it becomes the obvious
> choice. And, best of all, no more worries about
> "embedded quotes". YAY!
> |||
>
> slstr = |this is a single line string|
>
> The point is people, we should be using string delimiters that are
> ANYTHING besides " and '. Stop being a sheep and use your brain!

I disagree that quotes are a bad thing.  Most programming languages use 
+, -, / and * for arithmentic operations (* is closest character on a 
keyboard to x that is not the letter ex).  Why do they choose to do 
this?  It's actually a lot more work for the language implementer(s) to 
do this rather than simply providing functions add(x,y), subtract(x,y), 
divide(x,y) and multiply(x,y).

The answer is very simple - convention.  We use these symbols in 
mathematics and so it's much more convenient to follow through the 
mathematical convention.  The learning curve is much lower (and it's 
less typing).  After all experienced programmers know this is what is 
going on under the hood in pretty much all programming languages. 
Compilers are just making it easy for us.

While it may indeed make sense to use a different character for 
delimiting strings, in English we use " to delimit spoken words in a 
narrative.  Since strings most closely resemble spoken words from the 
point of view a programming language, using double quotes is a sensible 
choice since it eases learning.

Convention is a very strong thing to argue against (not to mention huge 
code breakage as a result of such a change).

Personally, I try to ensure I use consistency in the way I use the 
different quoting mechanisms, but that's just a personal choice. 
Sometimes that leads me to less pleasant looking strings, but I believe 
the consistency of style makes it easier to read.

I think this proposal falls in the, let's make python case-insensitive 
kind of idea - it's never going to happen cause it offers very little 
benefit at huge cost.

And I'm not going to contribute to this thread any further cause it's a 
pointless waste of my time to write it and others time to read it.

-- 
Dominic Binks: dbinks at codeaurora.org
Employee of Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc.
Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. is a member of Code Aurora Forum