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Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 22:12:40 +1100
Subject: Re: Time we switched to unicode? (was Explanation of this Python language feature?)
From: Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
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On Tue, Mar 25, 2014 at 9:24 PM, Antoon Pardon
<antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be> wrote:
> No they didn't have to. With the transition to python3, the developers
> could have opted for empty braces to mean an empty set. And if they
> wanted a literal for an empty dictionary, they might have chosen {:}.
> Backward-compatibility was already broken so that wasn't an argument.

Python 3.0 didn't just say "to Hades with backward compatibility". The
breakage was only in places where it was deemed worthwhile. Changing
the meaning of {} would have only small benefit and would potentially
break a LOT of programs, so the devs were right to not do it.

Python 3 and Python 2 are not, contrary to some people's opinions,
completely different languages.

ChrisA