[Python-ideas] Add "htmlcharrefreplace" error handler

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Sat, 15 Jun 2013 01:20:15 +1000
Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:
> On 14/06/13 19:22, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
> > On Fri, 14 Jun 2013 19:06:55 +1000
> > Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:
> >> On 14/06/13 18:49, Antoine Pitrou wrote:
> >>> "Keeping the HTML source ASCII-only" is just silly IMO,
> >>
> >> Surely no sillier than "keep the Python std lib source ASCII-only".
> >
> > Or than drawing stupid analogies. Do you understand the difference
> > between source code and hypertext documents?
> 
> Of course I do. I don't believe that the differences are as important
> as the similarities. Both are text. Both are expected to be read by
> human beings, at least sometimes.

HTML is expected to be viewed through a browser. Reading raw HTML is
the exception, not the norm. Moreover, CPython's source code is
supposed to be written and commented in English, meaning there's no
opportunity for non-ASCII characters. However, note that *arbitrary*
Python code can happily contain non-ASCII characters (including in
identifiers).

> Both may be edited in an editor, or otherwise passed through some
> tool, that does not handle non-ASCII text correctly, causing
> corruption.

Well, I'm personally ok with letting users of such incompetent tools
deal with it on their own. Python needn't fix all problems in the
computing world.

> Is this the point where someone now argues that it's too trivial
> to bother putting in the standard library?

I'm not arguing against putting it in the standard library, I'm arguing
against making it a built-in error handler.

(and IMO it's not too trivial)

> > And I haven't seen you propose a patch (when was your last patch, by
> > the way?).
> 
> Does it matter?

In an open source project which is ultimately driven by code
contributions, yes, it does matter quite a bit.

Also, in contrast with *other* open source projects, users of Python
don't have the excuse of being non-programmers to block them from
contributing.

> Do you think that *only* those who have contributed patches are
> capable of recognising a good, useful piece of functionality when they
> see it?

No, but certainly they are better able to judge whichever is "trivial"
or not; and how desirable it is *for them* to accept the additional
maintenance burden (since you aren't the one doing any maintenance,
again).

Regards

Antoine.