[Python-Dev] str object going in Py3K

[Alex Martelli]

On 2/14/06, Just van Rossum <just at letterror.com> wrote:
   ...
> Maybe it's even better to use opentext() AND openbinary(), and deprecate
> plain open(). We could even introduce them at the same time as bytes()
> (and leave the open() deprecation for 3.0).

What about shorter names, such as 'text' instead of 'opentext' and
'data' instead of 'openbinary'?  By eschewing the 'open' prefix we
might make it easy to eventually migrate off it. Maybe text and data
could be two subclasses of file, with file remaining initially as it
is (and perhaps becoming an abstract-only baseclass at the time 'open'
is deprecated).

In real life, people do all the time use 'open' inappropriately (on
non-text files on Windows): one of the most frequent tasks on
python-help has to do with diagnosing that this is what happened and
suggest the addition of an explicit 'rb' or 'wb' argument.  This
unending chore, in particular, makes me very wary of forever keeping
open to mean "open this _text_ file".


Alex