[Python-3000] The grand renaming

[Christian Heimes]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
> I don't like renaming PyString to PyBytes right now -- in 2.6 this
> sounds wrong since it is publicly known as the str[ing] type. Renaming
> only in 3.0 would make merges from the trunk harder. (Unless you have
> evidence to the contrary?)
> 
> I'm okay with renaming PyBytes -> PyByteArray, PyBuffer ->
> PyMemoryView, and the corresponding file renames (make sure to update
> all the project files, even for obsolete or minority compilers or
> platforms).
> 
> There's also a bunch of potential renames in the area of method and
> function objects, but I don't have the time to dig up the details.

I was thinking about a backport of the bytes type to Python 2.6. The new
bytes type is going to cause the largest head ache for developers. The
name "bytes" and the b"" literal don't conflict with any 2.5 feature.

A rename of the file would make it harder to merge changes from 2.6's
Objects/stringobject.c to 3.0's Object/byteobject.c but the renaming of
the function names doesn't make it much harder to merge. It's going to
cause some conflicts but they are easy to resolve.

Christian