Comment by eesmith

Python's print statement was surface-level beautiful, with subsurface flaws:

1) it modified the file object's "softspace"

  >>> class MyFile(object):
  ...   softspace = "Hello"
  ...   def write(self, s):
  ...     pass
  ...
  >>> f = MyFile()
  >>> f.softspace
  'Hello'
  >>> print >>f, "spam"
  >>> f.softspace
  0

2) This wasn't a problem until >> was added, because of problem #2 - the print statement didn't originally let you print to anything other than stdout. Which meant that if you wanted to support writing to a file instead of a stdout then you had to re-implement print yourself.

In practice, I've also found that having print as a function adds functionality because I can do things like:

    print(*data_values, sep="\n")

which is a quick way to print each value in a list on its own line.