[Python-Dev] Unicode

[Fredrik Lundh]

Martin v. Loewis wrote:
> > it is real.  I won't repeat the arguments one more time; please read
> > the W3C character model note and the python-dev archives, and read
> > up on the unicode support in Tcl and Perl.
> 
> I did read all that, so there really is no point in repeating the
> arguments - yet I'm still not convinced. One of the causes may be that
> all your commentary either
> 
> - discusses an alternative solution to the existing one, merely
>   pointing out the difference, without any strong selling point
> - explains small examples that work counter-intuitively

umm.  I could have sworn that getting rid of counter-intuitive
behaviour was rather important in python.  maybe we're using
the language in radically different ways?

> I'd like to know whether you have an example of a real-world
> big-application problem that could not be conveniently implemented
> using the new Unicode API. For all the examples I can think where
> Unicode would matter (XML processing, CORBA wstring mapping,
> internationalized messages and GUIs), it would work just fine.

of course I can kludge my way around the flaws in MAL's design,
but why should I have to do that? it's broken. fixing it is easy.

> Perhaps my problem is that I'm not a perfectionist :-)

perfectionist or not, I only want Python's Unicode support to
be as intuitive as anything else in Python.  as it stands right
now, Perl and Tcl's Unicode support is intuitive.  Python's not.

(it also backs us into a corner -- once you mess this one up,
you cannot fix it in Py3K without breaking lots of code.  that's
really bad).

in contrast, Guido's compromise proposal allows us to do this
the right way in 1.7/Py3K (i.e. teach python about source code
encodings, system api encodings, and stream i/o encodings).

btw, I thought we'd all agreed on GvR's solution for 1.6?

what did I miss?

> So while it may not be perfect, I think it is good enough.

so tell me, if "good enough" is what we're aiming at, why isn't
my counter-proposal good enough?

if not else, it's much easier to document...

</F>