[Python-3000] Making more effective use of slice objects in Py3k

[Josiah Carlson]

Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:
> 
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> On Aug 29, 2006, at 5:01 PM, Jim Jewett wrote:
> 
> > Why is it essential that string views be a different type, rather than
> > an internal implementation detail, like long vs int?  Today's strings
> > can already return a new object or an existing one which happens to be
> > equal.
> >
> > Is this just a matter of efficiency, or are you making a fundamental
> > distinction?
> 
> This is a good question.  I haven't been following this thread in  
> detail, but ISTM that users shouldn't care and that the object itself  
> should do whatever makes the most sense for the most general  
> audience.  I'm eager to never have to worry about 8-bit strings vs.  
> unicode strings, how they mix and match, and all the nasty corners  
> when they interact.  I'd hate to trade that for the worry about  
> whether I have a string or a string-view.

If views are not automatically returned for methods on strings, then you
won't have to worry about views unless you explicitly construct them.

Also, you won't ever have a string-view in py3k, it will be a bytes-view,
and if you want to do something like bts.[find|index|partition](sub),
you are going to need the bytes-view, as bytes don't offer those methods
natively.

 - Josiah