[Python-3000] email libraries: use byte or unicode strings?

[Nick Coghlan]

Barry Warsaw wrote:
> There are lots of other problems with the email package, and while it's
> made my life much better on the whole, it is definitely in need of
> improvement.  Unfortunately, I don't see myself having much time to
> attack it in the near future.  Maybe we can make it a Pycon sprint
> (instead of spending all that time on the bzr experiment ;), or, if
> someone else wants to lead the dirty work, I would definitely pitch in
> with my thoughts on API and implementation.

So here's a question (speaking as someone that has never had to go near
the email module, and is unlikely to do so anytime soon): is this
something that should hold up the release of Python 3.0?

As I see it, there are 3 options:
1. Hold up 3.0 until you get an API for the email package that handles
Unicode vs bytes issues gracefully
2. Drop the email package entirely from 3.0, iterate on a 3.0 version of
it on PyPI for a while, then add the cleaned up version in 3.1
3. Keep the current version (issues and all) in 3.0, with fairly strong
warnings that the API may change in 3.1

I don't know enough about the package to have an opinion on the answer,
but the nature of this thread makes me feel that this is a question that
needs to be asked.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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