[Python-ideas] Infix functions

[Andrew Barnert]

On Feb 23, 2014, at 3:48, Paul Moore <p.f.moore at gmail.com> wrote:

> ... Windows

> The general theme here is obviously "Windows" so maybe that's really
> what I'm saying. But it does mean that Andrew Barnert's comment "in
> the far off day that Python and source editors could handle Unicode.
> And we have pretty much reached that day." may not be true unless
> you're willing to ignore Windows users.

You're right, I misspoke imprecisely. We've reached the day where it's _in sight_, but now where it's usable fact. But that still means we can evaluate the idea a lot better now.

Even if Windows 9 were UTF-8-centric, or Python 4 used nothing but the UTF-16 interfaces in Windows and were PowerShell-friendly, there would still be all the problems I raised (like entry methods--not just for editors, but for the interactive interpreter, web sites and mail clients where you want to post code samples, etc.), and I think it's an open but maybe answerable question whether those problems are acceptable as a tradeoff for the benefits (as opposed to 20 years ago, where you could really only answer by guessing what a Unicode-friendly platform would look like).

Of course this is me talking about Bruce's idea. I don't want to put words in his mouth. And I also don't want people to forget that _my_ idea was using infix functions for _non-mathematical_ cases, and this is only a minor sideline to me.