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

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Tue Sep 6 06:46:04 CEST 2005

On 9/5/05, Calvin Spealman <ironfroggy at gmail.com> wrote:

There is a lot of debate over this issue, obviously. Now, I think getting rid of the print statement can lead to ugly code, because a write function would be called as an expression, so where we'd once have prints on their own lines, that wouldn't be the case anymore, and things could get ugly.

Sounds like FUD to me. Lots of functions/methods exist that could be embedded in expressions, and never are. Or if they are, there's actually a good reason, and then being a mere function (instead of a statement) would actually be helpful. Anyway, why would it be important that prints are on their own line where so many other important actions don't have that privilege?

But, print is a little too inflexible. What about adding a special name print, which the print statement would call? It should be looked up as a local first, then global. Thus, different parts of a program can define their own print, without changing everyone else's stdout. The Python web people would love that.

Too many underscores; print screams "internal use, don't mess" at you.

-- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list