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

[Fabien Schwob]

> FWIW, being French, I don't remember hearing any programmer wish (s)he
> could use non-ASCII identifiers, in any programming language. But
> arguably translitteration is very straight-forward (although a bit
> lossless at times ;-)).
> 
> I think typeability and reproduceability should be weighted carefully.
> It's nice to have the real letter delta instead of "delta", but how do I
> type it again on my non-Greek keyboard if I want to keep consistent
> naming in the program?
> 
> ASCII is ethnocentric, but it probably can be typed easily with every
> device in the world.
> 
> Also, as a matter of fact, if I type an identifier with an accented
> letter inside, I would like Python to warn me, because it would be a
> typing error on my part.
> 
> Maybe this should be an option at the beginning of any source file (like
> encoding currently). Or is this overkill?

I'm also French and I must say that I agree with you. In my case, the 
most important thing is to be able to manage the _data_ in the good 
encoding.

I'm currently trying to implement a little search engine in python (to 
improve my skills mainly) and the biggest problem I have to face is how 
to manage encoding. Some web pages are in French, in German, in English, 
etc. and it take me a lot of time to handle this problem correctly.

I think it's more useful to be able to manipulate simply the _data_ than 
to have accents in identifiers.

-- 
Derrière chaque bogue, il y a un développeur, un homme qui s'est trompé.
(Bon, OK, parfois ils s'y mettent à plusieurs).