[Python-3000] Fwd: Support for PEP 3131

[Guillaume Proux]

Hello,

On 5/14/07, Collin Winter <collinw at gmail.com> wrote:
> Says you. So far, all I've seen from PEP 3131's supporters is a lot of
> hollow assertions and idle theorizing: "Python will be easier to use
> for people using non-ASCII character sets", "Python will be easier to
> learn for those raised with non-Roman-influenced languages", etc, etc.
> Until I see some kind of evidence, something to back up these claims,
> I'm going to assume you're wrong.

How could you gather any evidence without implementing the support first?
I understand that your argument being really weak and not supported by
actual fact or evidence, it should also made void.

> Have there been studies on this kind of thing? Has there been any

Part of my first post was to try to call some attention on this,
precisely to gather more opinions and if possible evidence.

> natives to read, to make Python code as you say, "readable just by
> glancing at it". But the fact is any native-language identifiers will
> be surrounded in a sea of English: keywords, the standard library,
> almost all open-source packages, etc. How does that impact your
> readability guesses?

Let me understand how well you understand the problem yourself since I
am trying to see why you are putting up such a resistance to a somehow
innocuous change for "you" as a person for whom reading/writing latin
character is a core competency.
After 10 years in Japan (and near fluency), I can personally witness
of the inappropriateness of using latin characters to express yourself
when thinking in Japanese.

> [...]
> which are deeply rooted in English grammar? My suspicion is, at least
> for right-to-left languages like Arabic, not well, if at all.

While I still do not understand the reason for such an opposition from
people for whom this PEP would likely have no impact, but I expected
people using RTL languages to come up with a "this won't work with RTL
language" arguments.
However, PEP3131 is none about grammar, and all about the ability to
freely choose your identifiers (vars and method names) from the
charset that pleases you for your own programs.
Implementation of PEP3131 will not hinder people with RTL languages.
The fact that Python will continue having a standard latin inspired
grammar it not going to make RTL language people less productive than
before. Once again, this is a zero impact on them and this will still
greatly benefit people who understand the orthogonality between
grammar and variable naming.

Regards,

Guillaume