On 2018-07-02 18:16, Richard Damon wrote:
On 7/2/18 9:20 AM, Mikhail V wrote:
[Richard Damon]
The one major issue with backslashes is that they are a special
character in string literals, so you either need to use raw literals a
remember the few cases they still act as special characters, or remember
to convert them to double back slashes, at a minimum for all the
characters that they are special for (easier to double them all).
I think it was originally an error to make the backslash followed by a
character not defined as special with a backslash as keeping the
backslash as a literal as it causes a number of these issues. Yes, it
allows you to not need to double it in many cases but that just sets you
up for the mistakes that started the thread. It is probably too late to
change that behavior now though.
Yes this would at least make less mistakes.
I find the whole situation with strings a bit disappointing.
On the one hand - there were so many string types added, on the other
hand - there are still many inconveniences. There is an english proverb,
"it does too much, but still too little". (or something like that)
The initial string syntax -- I think it's direct copy of C strings syntax.
And it sucks. (path dependency?)
I'd say there should be just two main string types:
1. string literal where all special character goes into, say, figure braces {};
(if only there was a time machine)
2. raw strings, including multiline raw strings which should be PEP-8 compliant.
So Imo default syntax should be something like:
S = "A:{x41}B:{x42}"
instead of backslashes and Co.
Yes, the backslash notation is just like what C uses (an likely the
source of it). The exact same problem pops up in the C forums too. Not
sure where it got the notation from.
C is descended from BCPL, which used '*', e.g. newline was "*N".
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