Some of the folks on this list have attempted to shame me
for not accepting "with open arms", this vile encoding we call
Unicode, but i wonder, are they aware of the deepest held
beliefs of our very own leader?
The other day whilst perusing the idlelib i came across a
small but *very* significant line of code. They say a picture
is worth a thousand words, well folks, this one short line of
code might cause *ANY* picture blush with envy!
The line is as follows:
uniphooey = str
However, without some context, even the more "astute"
readers might miss the connection, so allow me to offer the
comment that precedes this line:
# The parse functions have no idea what to do with
# Unicode, so replace all Unicode characters with "x".
# This is "safe" so long as the only characters germane
# to parsing the structure of Python are 7-bit ASCII.
# It's *necessary* because Unicode strings don't have a
# .translate() method that supports deletechars.
We can obviously intuit that "uni" is short for "unicode",
and by attaching "phooey" to unicode the author is making a
public statement that he believes "unicode is phooey". But
what does "phooey" actually mean? The Merriam Webster online
dictionary defines "phooey" as:
PHOOEY: used to express disbelief, disappointment, or a
strong dislike for something.
So now it is blatantly obvious that the author of PyParse
does not care for unicode, and from my recollection, it was
the great GvR himself that wrote most, if not all, of the code
for IDLE and Tkinter.
Now that this revelation has seen the light of day, i wonder
just how "far apart" myself and the great one might actually
be on this unicode business?
On the other hand, if the author is not GvR, then he is most
likely someone of great importance within the community. In
any event, i believe it is high time that the author explain
his intentions when using the word "uniphooey", because
using any word should not be a crime, but hiding in the
shadows whilst a fellow member is being lynched, and not
having the balls to stand up and speak of your deeply held
beliefs *IS* the highest of all crimes! It is a betrayal of
not only your peers, but also of yourself.
--
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