Copyright © 2014 Bart Massey

This repo documents some of the failings of the Python programming language that I have discovered as I have taught it in introductory programming classes. These problems are significant both for beginning programmers and for software engineers. In each case, I have tried to suggest solutions that could be incorporated in a PEP to ameliorate the problem.

I have quite a bit of experience with programming language design and implementation, but I am in no way a Python guru. I would be grateful for corrections, suggestions and constructive critique.

In no particular order:

• append-fail: The choice of += as an append operator causes confusion.
• expr-fail: Implicit conversions between boolean and integer values combine badly with odd precedence rules.
• module-fail: Module variable scope rules are confusing, and the existence of function attributes makes them worse.
• nil-fail: The empty list is an lvalue, with odd consequences.
• replicate-fail: The list multiply operator doesn't copy (or even shallow copy) its prototype, inhibiting 2D array creation.
• scope-fail: Adding an assignment to a Python program can change the scoping of its variables in surprising ways.

This work is licensed under the "MIT License". Please see the file COPYING in the source distribution of this software for license terms.