On Thursday, November 23, 2017 at 9:57:12 PM UTC-6, Ben Finney wrote: [...] > This is a necessary consequence of increasing the diversity > of people able to program in Python: people will express > ideas originating in their own language, in Python code. > For that diversity to increase, we English-fluent folk will > necessarily become a smaller proportion of the programming > community than we are today. That might be uncomfortable > for us, but it is a necessary adaptation the community > needs to undergo.
Will your heroic crusade to bring equality to the shire also include Python standard library modules written in languages other than English? If so, then you'll need to contact Guido, as PEP8 will require some editing. Speaking of GvR... And even if you did managed to bring multilingualism to Python scripts and std-lib modules, wouldn't such "diversity" be merely symbolic? Hmm, because, when we consider the make-up of pydev (aka: nothing but English speaking dudes) we realize that there really isn't any diversity at all. At least, not where it matters. (aka: where the decision are being made) Furthermore, if we are to march headlong onto the glorious battlefields of diversity and equality, for the sake of all else, then, why should Guido's position be off limits? I mean, sure, he may a brilliant man. But he's surely not the most brilliant man on this planet, is he? And with that liberating thought in mind, may i offer an excerpt, for your intellectual consumption, from one of the most famous documents of all time? (emphasis mine) "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shewn, that [humankind] are more disposed to _suffer_ while evils are _sufferable_, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are "accustomed"; but when a ~long~ train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a _design_ to reduce them under absolute *DESPOTISM* -- It is their *RIGHT*! It is their *DUTY*! -- to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security" ...Declaration of Independence: July 4, 1776 I'm of the opinion that diversity is fine, so long as you don't make the fatal mistake of "lopping off your nose to spite your face". Take, for example, the accommodations our societies offer for handicapped people -- from wheel chair ramps, to reserved front-row parking spaces, to widened doorways, etc... -- these accommodations do *NOT*, in any way, undermine the accessability of healthy people who also utilize these same public spaces. In fact, the worst consequence of these accommodations might be that you and i must walk a few more steps from our car to the market. Big deal! But what you are suggesting is not so much an _accommodation_, as it is a fundamental fissure in our ability to communicate, one that will fracture the community far more than it is today. It would be as foolish as mandating that everyone must have their legs lopped-off, so that all will be "equal". Yes, diversity is great! But only when it welcomes outsiders without undermining the practical cohesiveness of the wider community. And if the result of your little "inclusivity project" is merely the replacement of N domestic community members with N foreign community members, foreigners who's regional dialects will muck-up the communication process, then it seems to me that what you have gained is merely a fulfillment of your _own_ emotional needs, at the expense of all. In conclusion. While a wise student of knowledge recognizes that: (1) social groups who have waxed into a homogenous block actually undermine themselves, because they lack the essential diversity of ideas required to see beyond the walls of their own "box", and the confirmation bias that infests such societies, will ensure that such a community is an evolutionary dead end. The same student _also_ recognizes that: (2) a society which resembles a jig-saw-puzzle dumped haphazardly on the floor, lacks the essential _cohesiveness_ required to maintain a strong sense of _community_, a sense which allows multiple individuals to work towards a common goal, in manner this is both practical and efficient. Something to think about. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list