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On Apr 17, 2020, at 13:12, David Mertz <mertz@gnosis.cx> wrote:
However, proposals for symbols in Python *do* pop up from time to time, so this would perhaps make such a thing harder if it ever becomes desired (which is unlikely, but possible).
Sure. It would also conflict with Nick Coghlan’s version of the conciser-lambdas idea, where `{ :a, :b }` would mean a set of two nullary lambdas. And the * mode switch would conflict with the proposal to use * as a special positional argument meaning “I’m not passing anything here (just as if I’d left an optional positional off the end, but here I’m doing it in the middle) so use your default value”. And I’m sure there have been other proposals for things :value in a dict display, keyword= in a call, * in a call, etc. could mean that I just don’t happen to remember. But unless one of those other proposals are likely to happen, or should happen, who cares? Assuming one of the proposals in this set of threads has sufficient traction, it would be silly to say “Let’s not do this thing that people want because it would make it harder to do a thing they don’t want”.