[Python-Dev] PEP 414 - Unicode Literals for Python 3

Steven D'Aprano steve at pearwood.info
Tue Feb 28 17:02:30 CET 2012


Vinay Sajip wrote:
> Serhiy Storchaka <storchaka <at> gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Another pertinent question: "What are disadvantages of PEP 414 is adopted?"
> 
> It's moot, but as I see it: the purpose of PEP 414 is to facilitate a single
> codebase across 2.x and 3.x. However, it only does this if your 3.x interest is
> 3.3+. If you also want to or need to support 3.0 - 3.2, it makes your workflow
> more painful, because you can't run tests on 2.x or 3.3 and then run them on 3.2
> without an intermediate source conversion step - just like the 2to3 step that
> people find painful when it's part of maintenance workflow, and which in part
> prompted the PEP in the first place.

I don't think it's fair to say it makes it *more* painful. Fair to say it 
doesn't make it less painful, but adding u'' to 3.3+ doesn't make it harder to 
port from 2.x to 3.1+. You're merely no better off with it than without it.

Aside: in my opinion, people shouldn't actively support 3.0, or at least not 
advertise support for it, as it was end-of-lifed on the release of 3.1. As I 
see it, it is best to pretend that 3.0 never existed :)



-- 
Steven


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