[Python-Dev] to string or not to string...

[David Ascher]

Guido van Rossum wrote:

>'str' and 'string' have to be separate because the whole point is that
>isinstance(u"", string) returns True.
>
I understand that.  I was just expressing that the names are awfully 
semantically close for the newbie.

>We could rename string to basestring?
>
That'd be better, IMO -- or even "strings", "anystring" or 
"string_interface" <wink/>.

>>Do we want string to be both the module and the interface
>>masquerading as a type?
>>    
>>
>That would *almost* work (string.lower could be an unbound method that
>calls the corresponding real class method) except string.join() would
>have the arguments reversed. :-(
>
Cute.

>>[Trent gets the credit for asking the question -- I'm just the tester =)]
>>    
>>
>
>Trent needn't be so shy. :-)
>  
>
Trent wasn't shy, he was just too lazy to update and rebuild to test, 
while I have paperwork to do so anything is more interesting.

--da