[Python-Dev] Divorcing str and unicode (no more implicitconversions). (original) (raw)

Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro gjc at inescporto.pt
Sat Oct 29 13:09:10 CEST 2005

On Sat, 2005-10-29 at 10:56 +0200, "Martin v. Löwis" wrote:

Atsuo Ishimoto wrote: > I'm +0.1 for non-ASCII identifiers, although module names should remain > ASCII. ASCII identifiers might be encouraged, but as Martin said, it is > very useful for some groups of users.

Thanks for these data. This mostly reflects my experience with German and French users: some people would like to use non-ASCII identifiers if they could, other argue they never would as a matter of principle. Of course, transliteration is more straight-forward.

Not sure if anyone has made this point already, but unicode identifiers are also useful for math programs. The ability to directly type the math letters, like alpha, omega, etc., would actually make the code more readable, while still understandable by programmers of all nationalities. For instance, you could write:

Δv = x1 - x0
if Δv < ε:
    return

Instead of:

delta_v = x1 - x0
if delta_v < epsilon:
    return

But anyone that is supposed to understand the code will be able to read the delta and epsilon symbols.

Regards.

-- Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro <gjc at inescporto.pt> <gustavo at users.sourceforge.net> The universe is always one step beyond logic

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list