[Python-3000] Support for PEP 3131

[Guillaume Proux]

Dear all,

On 5/14/07, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
> 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.

Interestingly, this is *not* a well known fact. I have asked 2
friend-of-mine seasoned Java programmers and they were *amazed* that
this is supported.
However, if you consider XML as a language, then there was plenty of
discussion in the past talking about the benefits of allowing unicode
characters in tags.
 see e.g. http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200107/msg00254.html


> 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

As one realizes that this needs to be done, then I would love to see
that introduced in 2.5 :)

> 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.

I wish you would be able to let us know precisely what hinders you in
accepting this change. After reading the following document,
http://www.python.org/doc/essays/foreword/ , I expected you would be
very open-minded to that change especially when you are talking about
"the emphasis on readibility" and how you came up with Python as an
evolution of ABC "a wonderful teaching language" because I can't fail
to see how such change would be incredibly important for Python as a
"wonderful teaching language" especially towards children in countries
where latin characters are really foreign.

Regards,

Guillaume