[Python-Dev] Replacement for print in Python 3.0

[Tony Meyer]

[Nick Coghlan]
> "Print as statement" => printing sequences nicely is a pain

What's wrong with this?

>>> print range(10)
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
>>> print tuple("string")
('s', 't', 'r', 'i', 'n', 'g')

This is a serious question - that's how I would expect a print function to
work anyway.

> "Print as statement" => can't easily change the separator
[etc]

To me, the point of the builtin print is that it's simple.  If you want to
control what separator is used, or if there is a newline at the end, or
print to something that isn't sys.stdout, or some other magic, then use
sys.stdout.write().  If you want to get the contents of __unicode__/__str__
of an object to stdout, which there has been overwhelming evidence is a very
common task, then print is a fantastically simple and straightforward way to
do that.

[Terry Reedy]
> For quickly adding debug prints, two extra ()s are a small burden, 
> but if the function were called 'out', then there would still be just five

> keystrokes.

But seven keypresses (assuming one is using a keyboard where you use shift
to get '(' and ')').  It sounds trivial, but a print statement (i.e. no ())
looks clean and concise.  I like this:

   while True: pass

More than:

   while (true) {}

For the same reason.  This is a big plus of Python vs. C.

[Guido]
> Consider this: if Python *didn't* have a print statement, but
> it had a built-in function with the same functionality 
> (including, say, keyword parameters to suppress the trailing 
> newline or the space between items); would anyone support a 
> proposal to make it a statement instead?

Yes.  If it didn't have the redirect stuff; I would like it more if it also
didn't have the trailing comma magic.  "print" is a fundamental; it deserves
to be a statement :)

=Tony.Meyer