[Python-Dev] r83893 - python/branches/release27-maint/Misc/ACKS

[Alexander Belopolsky]

On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 3:25 PM, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:
..
> If I were committing a patch and was checking to see whether a name that
> started with a decorated A (or any other letter) were already in the list, I
> would look in the appropriate place in the A (or other) section, not after
> Z.
>
> Everyone working on the English-based Python distribution knows the order of
> the 26 English letters. Please use that order (including for decorated
> versions and tranliterations) instead of various idiosyncratic and possibly
> conflicting nationality-based rules.
>

I believe, the golden standard for this type of works can be found in
the index pages of The Art of Computer Programming,

http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/help.html#exotic

It would be quite an effort to redo Misc/ACKS in that way, and even
with ASCII transliteration of every name, there is still ambiguity: is
"Van Rossum" sorted under "V", or under "R"? (See
http://www.python.org/~guido/ for an answer.)

Since it is apparent that no formal rule can be agreed upon, I think
best effort "rough alphabetical" order is just fine.  BTW, what is
Arfrever Frehtes Taifersar Arahesis' last name? :-)