[Python-Dev] PEP 460: allowing %d and %f and mojibake

Greg Ewing greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
Tue Jan 14 01:06:06 CET 2014


Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> PBP doesn't think it's a great idea to pass around bytes that are
> implicitly some other type, but didn't mind it (or got used to it) in
> Python 2, and so they're not looking at that as a problem that Python
> 3 can solve.  They're looking at Python 3 as the problem that prevents
> them from doing what worked fine in Python 2.

While some people may think that way, I don't think
it's fair to characterise *all* proponents of bytes
formatting as luddites that refuse to get with the
Python 3 way.

Some of us *do* understand the principles of text/
bytes separation in Python 3 and agree that they're
a good idea. We just don't agree that the proposed
formatting operations violate those principles to
any degree worth worrying about.

I don't think of my viewpoint as being PBP. That term
assumes there is purity there to be beaten. To my mind,
any notion of purity with respect to bytes objects
went out the window as soon as it was given a pile
of text methods -- together with a text-like literal
syntax and default repr(), even though at least half
the time they're completely inappropriate!

-- 
Greg


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