Pete Forman <petef4+use...@gmail.com>: > I like that Nick separates out the concept of alignment with implicit > semantics from the n spaces v tabs arguments. My question asks why > monospace is used for the text.
Because the so-called "plain text" is the age-old lowest common denominator for formal syntax. Python is especially picky about alignment, but the same de-facto assumption is critical pretty much in any programming language from Pascal to Go. Old computer science textbooks presenting algorithms in Algol, Pascal or, say, process algebra, did use varying-width fonts but they were typeset manually. You *could* liberate programming languages from the monospace stranglehold but then you couldn't effectively use "cat", "vi" or "firefox" to display Python programs. You probably would need to wrap the source code in some richer markup like XML and support it specially in the editors. Such enrichment would offer advantages. For example, the visual layout wouldn't necessarily have to be rigid. No more line-length wars (no lines would ever need to be "continued"). No more TAB wars. Comments could be displayed as floating bubbles, or maybe you would have to scratch the screen to see the comment text. Why, you could even decide on local language variations. How about braces to delineate blocks in Python? How about translating the keywords into Japanese? How about setting the Python code right-to-left with Hebrew keywords? Now, descending back on earth, I don't believe the advantages of rich source code will outweigh those of plain text in the foreseeable future. Marko -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
