[Python-3000] Set literal

[Aahz]

On Fri, Jan 25, 2008, Mark Summerfield wrote:
>
> Python 3 is going to break compatibility anyway. I thought one of the
> purposes of having a new major release was to allow for such changes.
> 
> In 2 or 3 years from now Python 3 will be "Python" for most people, and
> confusing inconsistencies won't be seen to have any rationale.

You are exceedingly optimistic.  My company was using Python 2.2 until a
few months ago, and getting rid of 2.3 is many months away.  Some people
still support Python 1.5.2 (ever hear of Fredrik Lundh?).  As other
people pointed out, there are trade-offs with every breakage, and some
changes are deemed just too radical.

More to the point: the focus on breakage is removing old idioms that are
considered language cruft even in Python 2.x.  {} as a dict literal is
not cruft.
-- 
Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com)           <*>         http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of     
indirection."  --Butler Lampson