Parentheses (as after "print")

[Peter Otten]

Stefan Ram wrote:

>   Why do we newbies write »print 2«? Here's another hint.
>   This is an original transcript of what happened to me today:
> 
> |>>> import( operator )
> |  File "<stdin>", line 1
> |    import( operator )
> |          ^
> |SyntaxError: invalid syntax
> |
> |>>> import operator
> |
> |>>> help operator
> |  File "<stdin>", line 1
> |    help operator
> |                ^
> |SyntaxError: invalid syntax
> |
> |>>> help( operator )
> |Help on module operator:
> 
>   What happened? I woke up today in parens mood. So I typed:
> 
> import( operator )
> 
>   Python told me that I should type:
> 
> import operator
> 
>   . Fine, Python conditioned me to omit the parens.
>   So now I was in noparens mood. So I typed:
> 
> help operator
> 
>   . Oops!
> 
>   "Don't make me think!"

If you want that level of -- let's call it consistency -- you should either 
plead for

foo = import("foo")

to spell an import or expect

print foo

to be syntactic sugar for

foo = __print__("foo")

(As for the ":" -- easy to read wins over easy to type.)