[Python-3000] Support for PEP 3131

[Steve Howell]

--- Josiah Carlson <jcarlson at uci.edu> wrote:
> 
> Perhaps, but there is a growing contingent here that
> are of the opposite
> opinion.  And even though this contingent is of
> differing opinions on
> whether unicode identifiers should even be allowed,
> we all agree that if
> they are allowed, they shouldn't be the default.
> 

I have always supported allowing unicode identifiers,
but as somebody who now uses ascii identifiers in all
the code that I write and all the code that I consume,
I am still 60/40 in favor of having ascii-only be the
default.

It will not the end of the world for me if
unicode-friendly turns out to be the default behavior,
but it does seem reasonable that *some* concession
were made to my general usage, like a simple
environment variable that I could set to disable
unicode identifiers.  In my case, security is not a
complete non-issue, but I mainly want this feature
from a usability standpoint.

I think PEP 3131 could be improved in two ways:

   1) In the Objections section, summarize some of the
reservations that folks have had about allowing
Unicode identifiers into the language, and then
address those reservations with the proposed
solutions.  Rauli's excellent post a few replies back
would be a good starting point.

   2) Propose an ASCII_ONLY environment variable.







       
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