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Author ezio.melotti
Recipients akuchling, chris.jerdonek, docs@python, eric.araujo, ezio.melotti, georg.brandl, r.david.murray, rhettinger, terry.reedy, tshepang
Date 2013-05-19.17:44:25
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Message-id <1368985466.18.0.546302957148.issue14097@psf.upfronthosting.co.za>
In-reply-to
Content
> Please restore the section "A value can be assigned to several
> variables simultaneously".

The reason for removing it are:
 * generally it's not really useful/used IMHO;
 * it has potentially confusing side effects (e.g. x = y = 0 is the same as x = 0; y = 0, but a = b = [] is not the same as a = []; b = []);
 * and more confusing side effects (http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2012-November/122552.html ;);

IOW I think that teaching this (especially at this point of the tutorial where you can't/shouldn't yet explain the side effects) does more harm than good.
It could be mentioned later in the tutorial when object identity is explained in more detail (I'm planning to work on this next), and should be also covered in the language reference (if it's not there already).

> Also, I'm unclear why you took out the Mark Lemburg's section
> on Unicode.

I'm planning to write something about Unicode when bytes are introduced.  That section has been written with Python 2 in mind, where byte strings are the default but "there are also Unicode strings".  For Python 3, users already naturally associate strings with text and explaining the text/bytes dichotomy and Unicode can be postponed.
History
Date User Action Args
2013-05-19 17:44:26ezio.melottisetrecipients: + ezio.melotti, akuchling, georg.brandl, rhettinger, terry.reedy, eric.araujo, r.david.murray, chris.jerdonek, docs@python, tshepang
2013-05-19 17:44:26ezio.melottisetmessageid: <1368985466.18.0.546302957148.issue14097@psf.upfronthosting.co.za>
2013-05-19 17:44:26ezio.melottilinkissue14097 messages
2013-05-19 17:44:25ezio.melotticreate