Python 3.3.0a4, please add ru'...'

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, 17 Jun 2012 05:11:25 -0700, jmfauth wrote:

> PS2 Opinion, if not really useful, consistency nver hurts.

If you're doing something useless or harmful, why would you want to do 
more of it for the sake of consistency?

"Consistency" requires somebody to write the code in the first place, 
which isn't free. If you don't have to pay for it, *somebody* pays for 
it, even if it is only in their own time and effort. That's a real cost.

Somebody has to write the code, update the documentation and create tests 
for it. Somebody else has to review the code. Every single time Python's 
test suite is run, extra tests are run. More code means greater chance of 
bugs or regressions. These are real costs.

Python programmers have to learn the new functionality, which may or may 
not be simple. Every time they write a string, they have to decide which 
delimiter to use: currently, there are 16 in Python 2, and a similar 
number in Python 3 (more? fewer? I'm honestly not sure). That decision 
isn't free. Your proposal would add four more string delimiters.

Now these may all be *small* costs, perhaps. They might be small enough 
that consistency for its own sake outweighs those costs. Maybe. But 
consistency doesn't happen for free. So it is not true that consistency 
*never* hurts. Consistency ALWAYS hurts, at least a bit, because it adds 
complexity. The only question is whether or not the benefit outweighs the 
harm. Often it will, but that can't be taken for granted.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"
- Ralph Waldo Emerson



-- 
Steven