[Python-Dev] Removing Non-Unicode Support?

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Mon Feb 20 06:16:37 CET 2006


On 2/19/06, Jeff Rush <jeff at taupro.com> wrote:
[Quoting Neal Norwitz]
> > I've heard of a bunch of people using --disable-unicode.  I'm not sure
> > if it's curiosity or if there are really production builds without
> > unicode.  Ask this on c.l.p too.
>
> Such a switch quite likely is useful to those creating Python interpreters
> for small hand-held devices, where space is at a premium.  I would hesitate
> to remove switches to drop features in general, for that reason.
>
> Although I have played with reducing the footprint of Python, I am not
> currently doing so.  I could never get the footprint down sufficiently to
> make it usable, unfortunately.  But I would like to see the Python
> developers maintain an awareness of memory consumption and not assume that
> Python is always run on modern fully-loaded desktops.  We are seeing
> increasing use of Python in embedded systems these days.

Do you know of any embedded platform that doesn't have unicode support
as a requirement? Python runs fine on Nokia phones running Symbian,
where *everything* is a Unicode string.

--
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)


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