Mark Janssen writes:
I think that is an awesome idea.
Violates TOOWTDI.
>>> print("This is an" + # traditional explicit operator ... " %s idea." % ("awesome" if False else "unimpressive")) This is an unimpressive idea. >>>
But you see you just helped me demonstrate my point: the Python interpreter *itself* uses ... as a line-continuation operater!
No, it doesn't. It's a (physical) line *separator* there. This:
"This is a syntax" + File "<stdin>", line 1 "this is a syntax " + ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax
is a syntax error. If "... " were a line continuation, it would be a prompt for the rest of the line, but you never get there.
Also, it won't violate TOOWTDI if the "+" operator is deprecated for strings. Strings are different from numbers anyway, it's an old habit/wart to use "+" for them.
They're both just mathematical objects that have operations defined on them. Although in math we usually express multiplication by juxtaposition, I personally think EIBTI applies here. Ie, IMO using "+" makes a lot of sense although the precedence argument is a good one (but not good enough for introducing another operator, especially using a symbol that already has a different syntactic meaning). I think it's pretty clear that deprecating compile-time concatenation by juxtaposition would be massively unpopular, so the deprecation should be delayed until there's a truly attractive alternative. I think the various proposals for a dedenting syntax come close, but there remains too much resistance for my taste, and I suspect Guido won't push it. I also agree with those who think that it probably should wait for Python 4, given that it was apparently considered and rejected for Python 3.