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

François Pinard pinard at iro.umontreal.ca
Sun Sep 4 21:22:23 CEST 2005

[Guido van Rossum]

[...] print is the only application-level functionality that has a statement dedicated to it. Within Python's world, syntax is generally used as a last resort, when something can't be done without help from the compiler. Print doesn't qualify for such an exception (quite the opposite actually).

As I much liked Pascal in its time, write()' and writeln()' are nothing awkward to me, yet in Pascal, neither was a "regular" function, and the Pascal compiler had special code for parsing these two. Python functions are designed in such a way that write()' and writeln()' in Python could be just functions, with no special compiler stunt, and consequently, they fit even better for Python than they did for Pascal.

Let's consider that print' (or whatever) is a Python function, not negotiable. It should likely be. If people resent the parentheses that a new print' would impose, then it might mean they would like that there is to be some way so Python functions could be be callable without parentheses in a more general way. It would represent quite a change in the syntax, and pull with it its own flurry of problems; but nevertheless, a seek for such a change might be presented as the only way for introducing `print' in Python 3K without a need for parentheses.

Perl, going from version 4 to version 5, was subject to a cleanup between operators and functions which could be seen as similarly encompassing. Logo and a few others also have parentheses-less function calls, yet they may be week at handling functions as first-class objects. (And besides, I'm far from overly liking them! :-).

-- François Pinard http://pinard.progiciels-bpi.ca

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