Japanese codecs (was Re: [Python-Dev] PEP 263 -- Python Source Code Encoding)

[Martin v. Loewis]

barry@zope.com (Barry A. Warsaw) writes:

> Which actually touches on something I wanted to bring up.  Why don't
> we include the Japanese codecs with Python?  Is it just a size issue?

I think Guido's original concern was about the size (apart from the
fact that they were not available before).

My concern is also correctness and efficiency. Most current systems
provide high-performance well-tested codecs, since they need those
frequently. It is a waste of resources not to make use of these
codecs. The counter-argument, of course, is that you cannot always
rely on these codecs being available (apart from the fact that you
need wrappers around the platform API).

> I bet we'd win some Ruby converts if we did this <wink>.  For
> reference, I'm thinking about including the Japanese and Chinese
> codecs with MM2.1 because it makes little sense to claim support for
> those languages without them.

That is certainly the right thing to do. If correctness could be
verified independently, I'd be in favour of including them with Python
- even though they will likely never get the efficiency that wrappers
around the platform's codecs would have.

Regards,
Martin