Rhodri James writes:
That's the clearest explanation of why "_" needs to be treated carefully, but I don't think it argues for the PEP's special treatment.
That depends on whether you care about taking advantage of the convention that "_" is a dummy. In fact, _ = gettext partakes of that convention: all the programmer need know about internationalization is that non-English speakers might like to read the string in their own language. From her point of view, _() is a no-op aka dummy.
Those people like me who just write for ourselves and don't care about internationalisation use "_" like any other variable with a strong implication that it's a dummy, so don't really care. Those people like you who care about internationalisation presumably avoid using "_" anyway, so the PEP's usage goes against your current instincts.
I can't speak for others, but I use "_" as a dummy all the time. Of course that means I need to take care to use a different convention in code that assumes _ == gettext, but it's rarely needed in my experience. But if the use of _ as a dummy in "case _" becomes syntax, I can't use a different dummy, can I? Or can I use a different dummy (such as "xx" or "__") at the expense of binding it? With the non-binding treatment of "case _", I don't have to worry about it. Steve