> Agree :) I don't understand what is wrong with <> syntax. It's cumbersome to have to support two different spellings for no good reason. (It's different for "..." and '...' strings, where there's a good reason to have both, namely embedding the other type of quote.) Even people who are used to <> can learn to type !=. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)