[I18n-sig] Strawman Proposal (2): Encoding attributes

[Paul Prescod]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
> 
> > As you point out, the problem is much more serious in Java because of
> > the classname/filename binding.
> 
> And Python doesn't have this problem?

The problem is not as serious in Python because of "import as". I
suspect that clever use of introspective features would also allow you
to map classnames back and forth between filesystem ASCII and your
native language.

Nevertheless, I want to point out that I am not advocating that Python
support full Unicode source files in the short term. I will carefully
scrutinize any new language feature designed with the assumption that
Python will be "forever ASCII." I see that as Y2K thinking. Also, our
i18n migration issues are painful enough right now to make me "twice
shy" about assumptions. I don't want to go through this again in five
years.

 Paul Prescod