Multibyte Character Surport for Python

[David LeBlanc]

Bravo! - oops, that's Italian.
Bon! - errr... French.
Hurrah! - hmmm... British.
Yippie! - aaah... 'merican :-)

Most humbly agree.

Python should be unicode imo and using ASCII or code page variants thereof
should be the special case. It's time that character code sets with language
biases went away. If PythonWin isn't fully unicode, then it should be (and
it must already be at least partly unicode since that's what COM and "real"
MS Windows OS variants are natively already). Ditto for other apps.

Yes, by all means, use english to describe programs; the built-in syntax,
variable names and program documentation, but enable and encourage the use
of national languages to communicate between the program and the user. While
knowing a second language (english) is a reasonable prerequisite for a
professional developer, "computer literate" shouldn't also mean "also knows
english". (OTOH, I think all english speakers should learn and become
_fluent_ in a second language, if only for the mental flexability it
engenders. Most 2nd language education in American schools below
college/university is a joke imo. Ma francais est terrible, en part parsque
je ne l'utilizer pas!)

Sorry if this sounds contradictory - it's not meant to be at all.

Regards,

David LeBlanc
Seattle, WA USA

> -----Original Message-----
> From: python-list-admin at python.org
> [mailto:python-list-admin at python.org]On Behalf Of Alex Martelli
> Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2002 2:40

<snip>
> Whatever I can do (which is not much at all) against anything
> furthering the _fragmentation_ (as opposed to, cultural diversity
> within helpful and peaceful cooperation, which is *great*!) of
> humanity, I will.  I am convinced that encouraging the use of
> a zillion different nautral languages in programs is a terrible idea
> and I earnestly hope Python does nothing at all to _help_ it.
>
>
> Alex
>