[Python-Dev] file system path protocol PEP

[Koos Zevenhoven]

On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 4:20 PM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It's not unusual for me to encounter "POSIX oughtta be enough for
> anyone" folks that are not yet entirely convinced that
> bytes-are-not-text, so I'm actually in favour of making the default
> Python-level API str-only as a healthy nudge away from the
> "text-is-just-bytes-with-an-encoding!" school of thought.
>

This was also how I convinced myself about the default str constraint.
However, I'm afraid it would be a weak weapon against using bytes
paths, since the people using bytes paths would not be likely to call
it, regardless of whether it supports bytes or not.

The nice thing is that pathlib is str-only and *that* will push people
away from bytes paths.

> However, in terms of the three groups Brett articulated (maximum
> flexibility, encouraging cross-platform correctness, and forgetting
> the whole idea), I'm in both camps 1 & 2 - I work with POSIX enough
> that I'm entirely on board with the notion that if you're specifically
> modelling *POSIX* paths, then bytes-with-an-assumed-encoding is
> frequently a good enough representation, but also deal with other
> environments (like Windows, the JVM and the CLR) enough to know that
> that particular representation of filesystem paths breaks down the
> moment you expand your scope of interest beyond *nix platforms.
>

I also agree with parts about Brett's "camp 2".

-- Koos