"Elliot Temple" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Hi I have two questions. Could someone explain to me why Python is > case sensitive? I find that annoying.
Because it comes from a language background of case sensitive languages (C, shell, etc.). But read what the BDFL has to say about it: <URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2001-July/054788.html > Personally, I think anyone who has two variables whose names differ only in case should be shot. No, let me extend that - anyone who has two variables whose names would be pronounced the same should be shot. I've had to debug such code, and it ain't fun. Variables whose name differs from the class they are instance of only in case is the only allowable exception. And should be used with care. On the same note, anyone who spells a variable name with different cases because the languge is case-insensitive should be shot. I want to be able to use various source analysis tools without having to worry about dealing with two different ascii strings being names for a single variable. Add those two together, and you'll see that *I don't care*. I consider taking advantage of a language being case-sensitive or case-insensitive to be a bad idea, so it doesn't matter what the language does. > Also, why aren't there > multiline comments? Would adding them cause a problem of some sort? Because no one every really asked for them. After all, there are two formats for multi-line strings, which the interpreter will build and then discard. There are tools that recognize multi-line strings after function/method definitions and treat them as function documentation. Adding multiline comments probably wouldn't be a problem - you'd just have to come up with an introductory character sequence that can't occur in the language (not that that stopped C). But you'd have to get someone to write the code, then someone with commit privs to decide it was useful enough to commit. That seems to be a lot of work for very little gain. <mike -- Mike Meyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
