Random stuff

Print statement in Python 2 is optimized for hello world and few other programs people who study the language write.

But because of its convenience, it found two other applications. First, it is sometimes used to produce output in serious, non-beginner programs. Second, it is the default choice for print debugging.

I don’t think it’s a good API for “real” output. It offers limited and awkward formatting options that overlap with rich and powerful formatting capabilities of str.format. Should I write

print 'hello,', name

or

print 'hello, {}'.format(name)

?

However, Python 3 legitimizes this use of print statement by turning it into a function, with the rationale saying “print is the only application-level functionality that has a statement dedicated to it…” and “…one quite often feels the need to replace print output by something more sophisticated…”

From a theoretical standpoint, I favor nice and orthogonal combination of sys.stdout.write() and .format(), but I’m not sure my resolve is strong enough in face of extra verbosity required:

sys.stdout.write('hello, {}\n'.format(name))

Anyway, speaking of the debugging/tracing use of print, I think pattern

print('x =', repr(x))

is common and useful enough that it should be implied. Proper way to achieve that would be, of course, to make debug print a statement!

It recently occurred to me that language support is not necessary. Intended behavior can be emulated with some stack trace magic: