Python 3.2 has some deadly infection

[Terry Reedy]

On 6/5/2014 10:45 AM, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:

> Mostly I'm saying Python3 will not be able to hide the fact that linux
> data consists of bytes. It shouldn't even try. The linux OS outside the
> Python process talks bytes, not strings.

A text file is a binary file wrapped with a codex to translate to and 
from a universal text format on input and output.  Much of the time, the 
wrapping is a great user convenience. Since the wrapping is optional, 
nothing is forced or really hidden.

> A different OS might have different assumptions.

Different OSes *do* have different assumptions. Both MacOSX and current 
Windows use (UCS-2 or) UTF-16 for text. It seems that unicode strings 
are better than ascii+??? strings as a universal basis for OS 
interfacing.  For Windows, at least, the interface is much improved in 
Python 3.

I understand that some, but not all, Latin alphabet *nix programmers 
wish that Python 3 continued to be strongly in their favor. But they are 
a small minority of the world's programmers, and Python 3 is aimed at 
everyone on all systems.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy