[Tutor] Re: Perl Symbology

[Bill Mill]

On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 18:22:30 +0100, Abel Daniel <abli at freemail.hu> wrote:
> Bill Mill writes:
> 
> > I get the impression that many pythonistas don't like string
> > interpolation. I've never seen a clear definition of why.
> >From "import this":
> 
>      Explicit is better than implicit.
> 
> And doesn't perl's method mean that you have to escape _every_
> _single_ '$' in strings? I think having to escape '\' is bad enough.

Abel,

You've provided me with what is approximately the eleventy-seventh
explanation I've gotten as to why string interpolation is bad. I don't
think that any of them are "stupid", per se, but neither do I think
that any of them are strong enough to be convincing. In my perfect
language, string interpolation would be on by default.

That said, there are enough reasons to think that it's a bad idea that
it is warranted to avoid turning it on by default. I don't mind typing
pp("interpolate $mystring"), and although I do wish python
standardized it before version 2.4 [1], I hardly even feel that it's a
wart in the language.

I just wanted to tell the person who wanted string interpolation that
it's easy to add into the language and easy to use. One should not
take python out of consideration if one feels that string
interpolation is a killer feature.

Peace
Bill Mill
bill.mill at gmail.com

[1] http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/335308