[Python-3000] Support for PEP 3131

[Guido van Rossum]

On 5/13/07, Collin Winter <collinw at gmail.com> wrote:
> Have there been studies on this kind of thing? Has there been any
> research into whether a mixture of English keywords and, say, Japanese
> and English identifiers makes a given programming language easier to
> learn and use? If so, why aren't they referenced in the PEP or linked
> in any emails? Given the lack of evidence presented so far, my
> operating assumption is that the PEP's supporters -- including you --
> are making things up to support a conclusion that they might wish to
> be true.

In particular, AFAIK Java has allowed all Unicode letters in
identifiers right from the start. I'd like to hear about descriptions
of actual user experiences with this feature, in Java or in any other
language that supports it. (*Are* there any others?) That would be far
more valuable to me than any continued argumentation for or against
the proposal.

I also note that there's no particular reason why this needs to be
done exactly in 3.0. It's not backwards incompatible -- it could be
done in 2.6 if people really really want it, or it could be introduced
in 3.1, 3.2 or whenever the world appears to be ready. I certainly
don't consider it an early design mistake to only require ASCII -- at
the time it was the only sane thing to do and I'm far from convinced
that it needs to change now.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)