On Thu, 05 Apr 2012 23:08:11 +0200, André Malo wrote: > * Steven D'Aprano wrote: > >> For a 21st century programming language or data format to accept only >> one type of quotation mark as string delimiter is rather like having a >> 21st century automobile with a hand crank to start the engine instead >> of an ignition. Even if there's a good reason for it (which I doubt), >> it's still surprising. > > Here's a reason: KISS.
KISS is a reason *for* allowing multiple string delimiters, not against it. The simplicity which matters here are: * the user doesn't need to memorise which delimiter is allowed, and which is forbidden, which will be different from probably 50% of the other languages he knows; * the user can avoid the plague of escaping quotes inside strings whenever he needs to embed the delimiter inside a string literal. This is the 21st century, not 1960, and if the language designer is worried about the trivially small extra effort of parsing ' as well as " then he's almost certainly putting his efforts in the wrong place. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
