[Python-Dev] Re: [I18n-sig] Re: Unicode debate

[Just van Rossum]

At 10:00 AM -0400 02-05-2000, Guido van Rossum wrote:
>[me]
>> >When *comparing* 8-bit and Unicode strings, the presence of non-ASCII
>> >bytes in either should make the comparison fail; when ordering is
>> >important, we can make an arbitrary choice e.g. "\377" < u"\200".
>
>[Toby]
>> I assume 'fail' means 'non-equal', rather than 'raises an exception'?
>
>Yes, sorry for the ambiguity.

You're going to have a hard time explaining that "\377" != u"\377".

Again, if you define that "all strings are unicode" and that 8-bit strings
contain Unicode characters up to 255, you're all set. Clear semantics, few
surprises, simple implementation, etc. etc.

Just