[Python-ideas] Is there a good reason to use * for multiplication?

[Joshua Landau]

On 14 October 2012 23:08, MRAB <python at mrabarnett.plus.com> wrote:

> On 2012-10-14 22:06, Joshua Landau wrote:
>
>> On 14 October 2012 20:57, Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org
>> <mailto:mwm at mired.org>> wrote:
>>
>>     On Sun, 14 Oct 2012 07:40:57 +0200
>>     Yuval Greenfield <ubershmekel at gmail.com
>>     <mailto:ubershmekel at gmail.com>**> wrote:
>>
>>      > On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 2:04 AM, MRAB <python at mrabarnett.plus.com
>>     <mailto:python at mrabarnett.**plus.com <python at mrabarnett.plus.com>>>
>> wrote:
>>      >
>>      > > If it's more than one codepoint, we could prefix with the
>>     length of the
>>      > > codepoint's name:
>>      > >
>>      > > def __12CIRCLED_PLUS__(x, y):
>>      > >     ...
>>      > >
>>      > >
>>      > That's a bit impractical, and why reinvent the wheel? I'd much
>>     rather:
>>      >
>>      > def \u2295(x, y):
>>      >     ....
>>      >
>>      > So readable I want to read it twice. And that's not legal python
>>     today so
>>      > we don't break backwards compatibility!
>>
>>     Yes, but we're defining an operator for instances of the class, so it
>>     needs the 'special' method marking:
>>
>>     def __\u2295__(self, other):
>>
>>     Now *that's* pretty!
>>
>>          <mike
>>
>>
>> I much preferred your first choice:
>> def __$⊕__(self, other):
>>
>> But to keep the "$" unused we can write:
>> def __op_⊕__(self, other):
>> (new methods will take precedence over the older __add__ and so forth)
>>
>> What we can do then is use the "\u" syntax to let people without unicode
>> editors have accessibility:
>> def __op_\u2295__(self, other):
>> ...later in the code...
>> new = first \u2295 second
>>
>> Which adds consistency whereas before we could only use that in
>> specific circumstances (inside strings), reducing cognitive burden.
>>
>>  I don't think we should change what happens inside a string literal.
>
> Consider what would happen if you wanted to write "\\u0190". It would
> convert that into "\Ɛ".
>
> IIRC, Java can suffer from that kind of problem because \uXXXX is
> treated as that codepoint wherever it occurs.


No, no. "\\" would have priority, still. "\\uXXXX" is invalid outside of a
string, anyway, so we're allowed to say that.
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