Guido on python3 for beginners

[Random832]

On Thu, Feb 18, 2016, at 01:47, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> There are more features in Python 3, so in that trivial sense of "more to 
> learn", I suppose that it is objectively correct that it is harder to
> learn 
> than Python 2. But I don't think the learning curve is any steeper. If 
> anything, the learning curve is ever-so-slightly less steep.

I wonder if (with one of the major differences being the unicode thing)
there is a differences between the learning curve for people whose
primary prior experience is with languages that use byte strings for
text (such as perl, [as typically used] C, shell/awk/etc, PHP, python 2)
vs languages that use some form of unicode string (UTF-8 byte strings on
a platform whose default encoding is also UTF-8 don't count) for text
(such as java, C#, javascript).

I feel like the unicode string stuff (issues like encodings etc) is
something that you only have to learn _once_, and then if you really
understand it then for a new language you can just look up how to do it.