[Python-3000] Support for PEP 3131

[Josiah Carlson]

"Guillaume Proux" <gproux+py3000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On 5/26/07, Josiah Carlson <jcarlson at uci.edu> wrote:
> > wanted to keep my codebase ascii-only (a not unlikely case), I can
> 
> So you have a clear preference for an ascii-only way. *YOU* *really*
> want to know when a non-ascii identifier crosses your path.
> 
> > For those who don't care about ascii or non-ascii identifiers, they will
> > likely already have an environment variable or site.py modification that
> > offers all unicode characters that they want, and they will never see
> > this message.
> 
> I will rephrase your sentence this way.
> "For those who DO care about ascii only identifiers, they will likely
> have already an
> environment variable or site.py modifcation that makes sure that all code ever
> imported is pure ascii and are going to see the message they want to see..."
> 
> > issue.  And I want this to *automatically* happen every time I run
> > Python
> 
> "and automatically every time they run Python"...
> 
> This argument cuts both ways.

It does, but it also refuses the temptation to guess that *everyone*
wants to use unicode identifiers by default.  Why?  As Stephen Turnbull
has already stated, the majority of users will have *no use* and *no
exposure* to unicode identifiers.  Further, unicode identifiers may very
well break toolchains, so signaling as soon as possible that "there may
be something you didn't expect here" is the right thing to do.

Baptiste Carvello, in addition to Jim, Ka-Ping, Stephen, and myself,
further discusses why ascii is the only sane default in his most recent
3 posts.


 - Josiah