new string function suggestion

[Raymond Hettinger]

[Andrew Dalke]
<200 lines of thorough analysis>
> To summarize:
>   - I don't think it's needed that often
>   - I don't think your implementation's behavior (using an
>        exception) is what people would expect
>   - I don't think it does what you expect

Wow, that was a remarkably thoughtful, total demolition ;-)
I expect that this thread is going to be somewhat short lived.