[Python-ideas] Accepting "?" as a valid character for identifiers

[Ben Finney]

Andre Roberge <andre.roberge at gmail.com>
writes:

> While Python 3 does not allow ?, it does allow characters like ʔ  (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottal_stop_%28letter%29)  which can be used
> to good effect in writing valid identifiers such as functions that return
> either True or False, etc., thus improving (imo) readability.

I consider “read-over-the-telephone-ability” to be an essential
component of “readability”. Your identifiers containing unpronounceable
characters would kill that.

Unless you're going to argue that you are writing identifiers taken from
a natural language that allows unambiguous pronunciation of ‘ʔ’ with the
same concision as other characters, of course.

I certainly don't want to be spelling out “U+0294 LATIN LETTER GLOTTAL
STOP” for a single character when I speak an identifier.

-- 
 \            “But it is permissible to make a judgment after you have |
  `\    examined the evidence. In some circles it is even encouraged.” |
_o__)                    —Carl Sagan, _The Burden of Skepticism_, 1987 |
Ben Finney