[Python-Dev] Python's Unicode width default (New Py_UNICODE doc)

["Martin v. Löwis"]

M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> Martin, please reconsider... the choice is between:

The point is that this all was discussed, and decided the
other way 'round. There is no point in going back and forth
between the two choices:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-June/036461.html

If we remove the code, people will *again* report that
_tkinter stops building on Redhat (see #719880). I
see no value in breaking what works now.

> a) We have a cross-platform default Unicode width
>    setting of UCS2.

It is hardly the default anymore cross-platform. Many
installations on Linux are built as UCS-4 now - no
matter what configure does.

> b) The default Unicode width is undefined and the only
>    thing we can tell the user is:
> 
>    Run the configure script and then try the interpreter
>    to check whether you've got a UCS2 or UCS4 build.

It's not at all undefined. There is a precise, deterministic,
repeatable algorithm that determines the default, and
if people want to know, we can tell them.

> I want to change the --enable-unicode switch back to
> always use UCS2 as default and add a new option value
> "tcl" which then triggers the behavior you've added to
> support _tkinter, ie.
> 
>     --enable-unicode=tcl
> 
> bases the decision to use UCS2 or UCS4 on the installed
> TCL interpreter (if there is one).

Please don't - unless you also go back and re-open the
bug reports, change the documentation, tell the Linux
packagers that settings have changed, and so on.

Why deliberately break what currently works?

Regards,
Martin