"!=" is bad form. Re: sorry....never mind

[Tim Peters]

[Jürgen A. Erhard, reacting to the deprecation of <> in favor of !=]
> <curious mode="slightly confused">
> So when can we expect `||' and `&&' to replace `or' and `and'?
> Shouldn't we `Beware of the slippery slope'?
> </curious>

The deprecation of <> occurred about a decade ago, before Python's first
public release.  It surprises people today only because (a) contrary to some
opinion, Guido is very keen on preserving backward compatibility so never
took <> away; and, (b) people generally don't read the language Reference
Manual, where this has been documented all along.

How slippery is this slope?  Well, one other class of syntax change did
tumble down the same path:  the shift (<< >>) and bitwise logical (& | ^ ~)
operators were added after <> was deprecated.

wondering-whether-micro-changes-per-decade-is-a-useful-measure-of-
    slipperiness-ly y'rs  - tim