[Python-Dev] Internationalization Toolkit

[Ka-Ping Yee]

On Tue, 9 Nov 1999, Andrew M. Kuchling wrote:
> Guido van Rossum writes:
> >It's from scratch, and I believe it's got Perl style, not POSIX style
> >semantics -- per Tim Peters' recommendations.  Do we need to open the
> >discussion again?
> 
> No, no; I'm actually happier with Perl-style, because it's far better
> documented and familiar to people. Worse *is* better, after all.

I would concur with the preference for Perl-style semantics.
Aside from the issue of consistency with other scripting
languages, i think it's easier to predict the behaviour of
these semantics.  You can run the algorithm in your head,
and try the backtracking yourself.  It's good for the algorithm
to be predictable and well understood.

> Doing the compilation in Python is a good idea, and will make it
> possible to implement alternative syntaxes.

Also agree.  I still have some vague wishes for a simpler,
more readable (more Pythonian?) way to express patterns --
perhaps not as powerful as full regular expressions, but
useful for many simpler cases (an 80-20 solution).


-- ?!ng