[I18n-sig] How does Python Unicode treat surrogates?

[Rick McGowan]

>  1. let's choose one or the other today
>  2. let's make it a compile-time switch
>  3. make it a runtime option

I definitely think Python should make a decision at the language level.   
But with the OO model, you can hide a lot of details behind string objects  
and accessors...

Runtime options on such things are bad.  This is one of the things Unicode  
is designed as an antidote for: the "choose char set at runtime" kind of  
18n model.

Compile time switch is poor because you do end up with two real models in  
the world.  Could affect interoperability a lot, and byte-code stuff might  
not be as easily portable.  (I don't know enough about the implementation  
or the language to guess, by the way.)

	Rick