[Python-Dev] New Py_UNICODE doc

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Shane Hathaway wrote:
> Then something in the Python docs ought to say why UCS-2 is not what you
> want.  I still don't know; I've heard differing opinions on the subject.
>  Some say you'll never need more than what UCS-2 provides.  Is that
> incorrect?

That clearly depends on who "you" is.

> More generally, how should a non-unicode-expert writing Python extension
> code find out the minimum they need to know about unicode to use the
> Python unicode API?  The API reference [1] ought to at least have a list
> of background links.  I had to hunt everywhere.

That, of course, depends on what your background is. Did you know what
Latin-1 is, when you started? How it relates to code page 1252? What
UTF-8 is? What an abstract character is, as opposed to a byte sequence
on the one hand, and to a glyph on the other hand?

Different people need different background, especially if they are
writing different applications.

Regards,
Martin