[Python-ideas] Visually confusable unicode characters in identifiers

[Chris Angelico]

On Tue, Oct 2, 2012 at 2:07 AM, Mathias Panzenböck
<grosser.meister.morti at gmx.net> wrote:
> I still don't understand why unicode characters are allowed at all in
> identifier names. Is the reason for this written down somewhere?

Same reason you're allowed more than two letters in your identifiers:
to allow programmers to make variable names meaningful. The problem
isn't with Unicode, anyway; there are plenty of fonts in which l and 1
are practically identical, and unless your font is monospaced, you
probably will have trouble distinguishing __________rn___ from
__________m___ (just how many underscores IS that?). It's up to the
programmer to be smart about his names.

ChrisA