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

[tpassin@home.com]

Guido van Rossum said
<snip/>
> What would be the difference between string and string8?

Probably none, except to alert people that string8 might have different
behavior than the present-day string, perhaps when interacting with
unicode - probably its behavior would be specified more tightly (i.e., is it
strictly a list of bytes or does it have some assumption about encoding?) or
changed in some way from what we have now.  Or if it turned out that a lot
of programmers in other languages (perl, tcl, perhaps?) expected "string" to
behave in particular ways, the use of a term like "string8" might reduce
confusion.   Possibly none of these apply - no need for "string8" then.

>
> > Clarity and ease of use for the user should be primary, fast
implementations
> > next.  If we didn't care about ease of use and clarity, we could all use
> > Scheme or c, don't use sight of it.
> >
> > I'd suggest we could create some use cases or scenarios for this area -
> > needs input from those who know encodings and low level Python stuff
better
> > than I.  Then we could examine more systematically how well various
> > approaches would work out.
>
> Very good.
>
<snip/>

Tom Passin