Python’s new t-strings

All things considered, this is pretty cool. Basically, this replaces

    db.execute("QUERY WHERE name = ?", (name,))

with

    db.execute(t"QUERY WHERE name = {name}")

Does the benefit from this syntactic sugar outweigh the added complexity of a new language feature? I think it does in this case for two reasons:

1. Allowing library developers to do whatever they want with {} expansions is a good thing, and will probably spawn some good uses.

2. Generalizing template syntax across a language, so that all libraries solve this problem in the same way, is probably a good thing.

I did a safe OCaml implementation of this about 20 years ago, the latest version being here:

https://github.com/darioteixeira/pgocaml

Note that the variables are safely and correctly interpolated at compile time. And it's type checked across the boundary too, by checking (at compile time) the column types with the live database.

Yes, what you did is strictly more powerful than what the Python people did. And you did it 20 years ago. Well done, have an upvote. And yet, here we are in 2025 with Python popularity growing unstoppably and (approximately) no one caring about OCaml (and all the other languages better than Python). It makes me sad.

It's interesting how the majority has explicitly chosen NOT to use the "better" languages. Is the majority really that bad in their judgment? Or is it that "better" is actually defined by adoption over time?

momentum + ecosystem often play a much larger role than actual language merits.