[I18n-sig] Python and Unicode == Britain and the Euro?

[Tim Peters]

[Tim quotes the Ref Man]
>     Python uses the 7-bit ASCII character set for program text and
>     string literals.
>
> That was Guido's intent, ...

[Paul Prescod]
> That may be the rule but try enforcing it. It is so widely violated
> as to be irrelevant.

Not news -- why do you suppose it isn't enforced <wink>?

> I would love it if you did try to enforce it in Python 2.1. You
> would take the heat for breaking everyone's non-ASCII programs
> and then I could come in and propose the draconian rule be eased with
> the encoding declaration.

Your life would indeed be easier then.

> The wide violation of this rule should inform our discussions about
> where Python source code is going in the future...

In theory you'd hope it would aid your case, but in practice I'm afraid it
works against you:  people with 8-bit character sets covered by C locale
gimmicks seemed happier before Unicode was added.  Also not news, of
course -- Unicode irritates everyone, because it's nobody's national
encoding scheme.