logic behind the assert syntax?

[Greg Ewing]

Niels Diepeveen wrote:
> 
> The basic problem is that ASCII just doesn't provide enough different
> brackets to use for lists, dicts and tuples and still leave parentheses
> available for their normal use, so tuples have to be identified just by
> the commas.

Actually, they don't *have* to be. Parentheses could have
been required around tuple constructors, and that would have
relieved some of the confusion, and left more options open
for future language extensions. The language wasn't designed
that way, though, and we're stuck with the consequences.
Until Python 3000, anyway.

Or-should-that-be-Pyython-3000,

-- 
Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, University of Canterbury,	  
Christchurch, New Zealand
To get my email address, please visit my web page:	  
http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg