Damnation!

[Moshe Zadka]

On Sat, 20 May 2000, Thomas Malik wrote:

> Same for me ...
> I've just convinced our whole department (at a german bank) to use Python
> instead of Perl. A case - insensitive language won't be acceptable by any of
> us. So, Guido, should i start looking for another job ...?

I'm not Guido, but I'll try, for the n-th time, to give an overview.
Python 1.6a2 is out. In a few months, hopefully, Python 1.6 final will
come out. Then, Python 1.7 is planned to take another year. It is still
unsure, at this stage, whether a Python 1.8 release will be issued. Of
course, if show-stopping bugs will be found in a released version, a
new version 1.x.y might be released. The whole 1.x line is firmly commited
to backwards compatability, modulu changing undocumented behaviour.
Once Python 1.7 or 1.8 will be released, Py3K development will start. It
will probably take at least a year, with many design decisions debated on
various sigs. So, for at least 2.5 years, Python will remain
case-sensitive.

BTW: Case-insensitivity a show stopper? This boggled me. I mean, case
sensitivity/insensitivity is the most minor feature of programming
language. Type declerations, memory management, and even whitespce seem
like much more earth shaking issues.

--
Moshe Zadka <moshez at math.huji.ac.il>
http://www.oreilly.com/news/prescod_0300.html
http://www.linux.org.il -- we put the penguin in .com