Message 348354 - Python tracker (original) (raw)

Raymond, are you in agreement that these warnings should at some point eventually become syntax errors?

I used to think so, but after experiencing the incessant warnings, I question the value. In inactive sessions (either with the regular REPL or the ipython REPL), they are a recurring annoyance that interferes with data exploration live demos. Perhaps, this should be left for a lint or code analysis tool. Why should we intentionally break code that is currently working fine.

Another issue that I've encountered is that ASCII art becomes gets flagged. Switching to a raw string then kills the unicode escape sequences.

This isn't really a "Raymond doesn't like this" concern. I think anyone who starts using 3.8 on a daily basis for non-toy examples will constantly run into this. Possibly, it catches a real error, but most often it will just be a recurring distractor, especially when teaching Python. All instructors and runners of live demos will need to memorize exactly which characters require an escape and which don't -- it creates a new burden that didn't exist before. And if the source of the problem is in an external library, the result is unactionable by the user, merely making their experience unpleasant.