[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > Ben Finney: > > I don't see any good reason (other than your familiarity with the > > D language) to use underscores for this purpose, and much more > > reason (readability, consistency, fewer arbitrary differences in > > syntax, perhaps simpler implementation) to use whitespace just as > > with string literals. > > It's not just my familiarity, Ada language too uses underscore for > that purpose, I think, so there's a precedent, and Ada is a language > designed to always minimize programming errors, simple code mistakes > too.
I would argue that the precedent, already within Python, for using a space to separate pieces of a string literal, is more important than precedents from other programming languages. > Consider: > > a = 125 125 125 > > a = 125, 125, 125 > > a = 125_125_125 > > For me the gestalt of the first line looks too much like the second > one, that is three separated things This is no more the case than for literal strings: a = "spam" "eggs" "ham" a = "spam", "eggs", "ham" Yet this is already a valid way in Python to specify, respectively, a single literal string and a literal tuple of strings. > While in the third case the _ helps glue the parts, creating a > single gestalt to my eyes. To my eyes, it's needlessly hard to read, and looks too similar to an identifier, not a literal. On the other hand, the spaces version is easy to see as analogous to the same syntax rules that already exist for strings. > Note that it's not just a matter of font and familiarity, it's also a > matter of brains. Your brain may be different from mine, so it may be > possible that what's better for you isn't better for me. So in such > situation a popular voting may be the only way to choose. But for me > having spaces to split number literals in parts is _worse_ than not > having any way at all to split them. So I'm strong opposed to your > suggestion, so I may not even propose the PEP if lot of people agrees > with your tastes. Thanks for making your position clear. -- \ “The WWW is exciting because Microsoft doesn't own it, and | `\ therefore, there's a tremendous amount of innovation | _o__) happening.” —Steve Jobs | Ben Finney -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list