[Python-ideas] Gettext syntax (was Re: Allow "assigning" to ...)

[Barry Warsaw]

On Feb 12, 2015, at 02:40 PM, Ben Finney wrote:

>Gettext has been using the name ‘_’ since 1995, which was in Python's
>infancy. The name ‘_’ is pretty obvious, I'm sure it was in use before
>Python came along.

Exactly.  All this was designed for compatibility with GNU gettext conventions
such as in i18n'd C programs.  It was especially useful to interoperate with
source text extraction tools.  We were aware of the collision with the
interactive interpreter convenience but that wasn't deemed enough to buck
established convention.  Using _ to imply "ignore this value" came along
afterward.

Cheers,
-Barry
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