Help understanding the decisions *behind* python?

[John Nagle]

Dave Angel wrote:
> sturlamolden wrote:
>> On 20 Jul, 18:27, Phillip B Oldham <phillip.old... at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Tuples are used for passing arguments to and from a function. Common
>> use of tuples include multiple return values and optional arguments
>> (*args).

    That's from Mesa, the Xerox PARC language of the 1970s.

    Mesa used tuples for subroutine arguments in a very straightforward
way.  Every function took one tuple as an argument, written as parameters
in parentheses separated by commas.  Every function returned a tuple
as an argument.  This had a nice symmetry; function outputs and
function inputs had the same form.  Mesa was the first language
to break through the "single return value" syntax problem.

    Python doesn't go that far.

				John Nagle