[Python-Dev] Replacement for print in Python 3.0 (original) (raw)

skip@pobox.com skip at pobox.com
Sat Sep 3 23:02:19 CEST 2005 

>> Nope, but there is a large body of code out there that does use print
>> statements already.  Again, I know you're prepared for breakage, but
>> that doesn't necessarily mean a completely blank sheet of paper.

Neal> Ideally I very much prefer that print become a function.  However,
Neal> the major backlash has swayed me some, if for no other reason that
Neal> people are so strongly against changing it.

I think from Guido's perspective the print statement is a wart. From my perspective I see it as a case of if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'll adapt to a print function easily enough. The breakage just seems unnecessary.

Neal> What if a tool existed that did the conversion?  I realize that
Neal> the tool is unlikely to be perfect, but what if it could do 99.9%
Neal> of the job?  I'm not thinking about just fixing print, but also
Neal> converting iterkeys/itervalues/iteritems, xrange -> range,
Neal> raw_input -> input, warning about use of input(), etc.

That's a different subject altogether, especially if you are talking about more than just converting print. It should probably have its own subject and thread. I don't know what's in the "etc" part, but I've never used iter-this-n-that (their names have always seemed ugly enough that I've simply avoided them) or raw_input, I rarely use xrange, and the conversion is trivial, so the only potential benefit for me would be print, which I can probably get 90% of the way there with a couple Emacs macros.

Skip

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