[Python-Dev] Divorcing str and unicode (no more implicit conversions).

[Jason Orendorff]

-1 on keeping the source encoding of string literals.  Python should
definitely decode them at compile time.

-1 on decoding implicitly "as needed".  This causes decoding to happen
late, in unpredictable places.  Decodes can fail; they should happen
as early and as close to the data source as possible.

-j