[Python-Dev] Adding .decode() method to Unicode

[Paul Prescod]

Fredrik Lundh wrote:
> 
>...
> 
> uhuh?  and how exactly is this cooler than being able to do
> something like the following:
> 
>     import quopri, base64
>...
> 
> (going through the codec registry is slower, and imports more
> modules, but what's so cool with that?)

One argument in favor is that the base64 and quopri modules are not
standardized today. In fact, Python has a huge problem with
standardization of access paradigms in the standard library. We get the
best standardization (i.e. of the "file interface") when we force module
authors to conform to a standard in order to get some "extra feature" of
the standard library.

A counter argument is that the conflation of the concept of Unicode
encoding/decoding and other forms of encoding/decoding could be
confusing. MAL would not have to keep pointing out that "codecs are for
more than Unicode encoding/decoding" if it was obvious.
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