String performance regression from python 3.2 to 3.3

[rusi]

On Mar 16, 9:09 am, Chris Angelico <ros... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 2:56 PM, Mark Lawrence <breamore... at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > On 16/03/2013 02:44, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
>
> >> Chris Angelico wrote:
>
> > Thomas and Chris, would the two of you be kind enough to explain to morons
> > such as myself how all the ECMAScript stuff relates to Python's unicode as
> > implemented via PEP 393 as you've lost me, easily done I know.
>
> Sure. Here's the brief version: It's all about how a string is exposed
> to a script.
>
> * Python 3.2 Narrow gives you UTF-16. Non-BMP characters count twice.
> * Python 3.2 Wide gives you UTF-32. Each character counts once.
> * Python 3.3 gives you UTF-32, but will store it as compactly as possible.

Framing issue here (made famous by en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
George_Lakoff)

When one uses words like 'compact' 'flexible' etc it loads the dice in
favour of 3.3 choices.
And ignores that 3.3 trades time for space.