[Python-Dev] PEP 3102: Keyword-only arguments

[Terry Reedy]

"Fredrik Lundh" <fredrik at pythonware.com> wrote in message 
news:e35a4q$c23$1 at sea.gmane.org...
> which reminds me of the following little absurdity gem from the language
> reference:
>
>    The following identifiers are used as keywords of the language, and
>    cannot be used as ordinary identifiers. They must be spelled exactly
>    as written here: /.../
>
> (maybe it's just me).

I am not sure of what you see as absurdity, as opposed to clumbsiness. 
Keywords are syntacticly indentifiers, but are reserved for predefined 
uses, and thus sematically are not identifiers.  Perhaps 'ordinary 
indentifiers' should be replaced by 'names'.  The second sentence is 
referring to case variations, and that could be more explicit.  Before the 
elevation of None to reserved word status, one could have just added ", in 
lower case letters"

> btw, talking about idioms used in the language reference, can any of the
> native speakers on this list explain if "A is a nicer way of spelling B" 
> means
> that "A is preferred over B",  [alternatives snipped]

Yes.

Terry Jan Reedy