[Python-Dev] PEP 460 reboot

[Terry Reedy]

On 1/14/2014 1:11 PM, Jim J. Jewett wrote:

> But in terms of explaining the text model, that
> separation is important enough that
>
>      (1)  We should be reluctant to strengthen the
>           "its really just ASCII" messages.
>      (2)  It *may* be worth creating a virtual
>           split in the documentation.
>
> I'm willing ot work on (2) if there is general consensus
> that it would be a good idea.  As a rough sketch, I
> would change places like
>
>      http://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#typebytes
>
> from:
>
>      Bytes objects are immutable sequences of single bytes.
>      Since many major binary protocols are based on the ASCII
>      text encoding, bytes objects offer several methods that
>      are only valid when working with ASCII compatible data
>      and are closely related to string objects in a variety
>      of other ways.
>
> to something more like:
>
>      Bytes objects are immutable sequences of single bytes.
>
>      A Bytes object could represent anything, and is
>      appropriate as the underlying storage for a sound sample
>      or image file.
>
>      Virtual subclass ASCIIStructuredBytes
>      ====================================
>
>      One particularly common use of bytes is to represent
>      the contents of a file, or of a network message.  In
>      these cases, the bytes will often represent Text
>      *in a specific encoding* and that encoding will usually
>      be a superset of ASCII.  Rather than create and support
>      an ASCIIStructuredBytes subclass, Python simply added
>      support for these use cases straight to Bytes objects,
>      and assumes that this support simply won't be used when
>      when it does not make sense. For example, bytes literals
>      *could* be used to construct a sound sample, but the
>      literals will be far easier to read when they are used
>      to represent (encoded) ASCII text, such as "OPEN".

I rather like this. Consider opening a tracker issue.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy