On Sunday, July 3, 2016 at 12:42:14 AM UTC-7, Chris Angelico wrote: > On Sun, Jul 3, 2016 at 4:58 PM, John Ladasky wrote:
> Very good question! The detaily answer is here: > > https://docs.python.org/3/reference/lexical_analysis.html#identifiers > > > A philosophical question. Why should any character be excluded from a > > variable name, besides the fact that it might also be an operator? > > In a way, that's exactly what's happening here. Python permits certain > categories of character as identifiers, leaving other categories > available for operators. Even though there aren't any non-ASCII > operators in a vanilla CPython, it's plausible that someone could > create a Python-based language with more operators (eg ≠ NOT EQUAL TO > as an alternative to !=), and I'm sure you'd agree that saying "≠ = 1" > is nonsensical. I agree that there are some characters in the Unicode definition that could (should?) be operators and, as such, disallowed in identifiers. "≠", "≥" and "√" come to mind. I don't know whether the Unicode "character properties" are assigned to the characters in a way that would be satisfying to the needs of programmers. I'll do some reading. > Symbols like that are a bit of a > grey area, so you may find that you're starting a huge debate :) Oh, I can see that debate coming. I know that not all of these characters are easily TYPED, and so I have to reach for a Unicode table to cut and paste them. But once but and pasted, they are easily READ, and that's a big plus. Here's another worm for the can. Would you rather read this... d = sqrt(x**2 + y**2) ...or this? d = √(x² + y²) -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
