On May 15, 3:28 pm, René Fleschenberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > We all know what the PEP is about (we can read). The point is: If we do > not *need* non-English/ASCII identifiers, we do not need the PEP. If the > PEP does not solve an actual *problem* and still introduces some > potential for *new* problems, it should be rejected. So far, the > "problem" seems to just not exist. The burden of proof is on those who > support the PEP.
I'm not sure how you conclude that no problem exists. - Meaningful identifiers are critical in creating good code. - Non-english speakers can not create or understand english identifiers hence can't create good code nor easily grok existing code. Considering the vastly greater number of non-English spreakers in the world, who are not thus unable to use Python effectively, seems like a problem to me. That all programers know enough english to create and understand english identifiers is currently speculation or based on tiny personaly observed samples. I will add my own personal observation supporting the opposite. A Japanese programmer friend was working on a project last fall for a large Japanese company in Japan. A lot of their programming was outsourced to Korea. While the liason people on both side communicated in a mixture of English and Japanese my understanding was the all most all the programmers spoke almost no English. The language used was Java. I don't know how they handled identifiers but I have no reason to believe they were English (though they may have been transliterated Japanese). Now that too is a tiny personaly observered sample so it carries no more weight than the others. But it is enough to make me question the original assertion thal all programmers know english. It's a big world and there are a lot of people out there. Drawing conclusions based on 5 or 50 or 500 personal contacts is pretty risky, particularly when being wrong means putting up major barriers to Python use for huge numbers of people. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
