[Python-Dev] Unicode howto in the works - feedback appreciated

[Paul Prescod]

Gustavo Niemeyer wrote:
> 
>...
> 
> Why isn't "iso-8859-1" used as the default encoding instead of "ascii",
> since it would help a broader number of langugages, and is the default
> in operating systems like Linux. Maybe it would cause harm for other
> encodings in some way?

Latin-1 is just one encoding and it would likely not be the "right
guess" for a Russian programmer for example. There is some basis for
treating Latin-1 as the "default encoding" in the Unicode specification
but everytime that flamewar erupts, Guido decides that it is better to
force everyone to be explicit about what they mean, even if it does
result in a much, much higher incidence of that annoying ASCII error
message.

 Paul Prescod