[Python-Dev] When should pathlib stop being provisional?

[Alexander Walters]

On 4/5/2016 22:44, Nick Coghlan wrote:
> Option 4: define a rich-object-to-text path serialisation convention,
> as paths are not conceptually the same as arbitrary strings
Just as a nit to pick, it is perfectly acceptable for hypothetical path 
objects to raise when someone tries to shoehorn them into acting like 
arbitrary strings - open() will gladly halt and set fire if you try and 
pass the text of war and peace as an argument.

I think the naysayers would be satisfied with an object that... while 
not str or bytes or a derived class of either... acted like str when it 
had to.  Is that possible without deriving from str or bytes?