Okay. So.
The rule for reverts like this is: if you do something today, which is correct usage of the API and produces an observably correct result, will that be broken in the future if we fix it? If so, then we need to revert because the interface as released is unsupportable.
As it stands, we have a matrix of 4 behaviors:
bytes text(ascii) text(nonascii) py2 works works UnicodeDecodeError py3 garbage works works
This... is actually... fine, surprisingly.
The right thing to do is to write code that passes text all the time. If you do that right now, it'll work on py3 and raise an exception on py2, unless it happens to be ASCII, in which case it'll work.
If you write code that passes bytes on py3, it'll just be garbage. But, we want to deprecate that anyway, and you can't get correct, usable behavior out of it, no matter what workarounds you stuff in; so it's a bug, and can be fixed like any bug.
Similarly if you pass non-ascii text on py3, you'll get a UnicodeDecodeError.
-glyph
Pedantically yours,
-- John Santos Evans Griffiths & Hart, Inc. 781-861-0670 ext 539