Re: [Python-ideas] Making colons optional? Syntactic alternative.
On 5-Feb-09, at 8:56 AM, spir wrote:
Le Wed, 4 Feb 2009 23:35:30 -0330, Riobard Zhan yaogzhan@gmail.com a écrit :
Hi everybody,
I'm proposing to make colons optional.
I 99% agree with that. But 100% sure this will never happen. No
chance at all, imo... Still, it may be worth exchanging some
thoughts on the topic as an opprtunity to take some distance, and
watch python common traits with an outer look (correct?).
I am a little bit different than you in the numbers--I 100% dislike
colons, but 99% sure they will never be made optional. That last 1%
leads me to give it a try here :) I totally agree with you that
discussing such issues would be a great chance to learn something
about Python. How many Python users outside this mailing list
understand the rationale behind colons? I guess it might be a few.
It's an issue worth thinking.
A kind of meaning conflict nevertheless exists even
in python
itself: a ':' sign even more nicely carries a sense of binding, or
link. Python uses this common world semantics in dict litteral
key:value pairs.
Colons are also used for slicing. Seem to be overused ...