How to waste computer memory?

[Marko Rauhamaa]

Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com>:
> On Sat, Mar 19, 2016 at 2:26 AM, Marko Rauhamaa <marko at pacujo.net> wrote:
>> It may be that Python's Unicode abstraction is an untenable illusion
>> because the underlying reality is 8-bit and there's no way to hide it
>> completely.
>
> The underlying reality is 1-bit. Or maybe the underlying reality is
> actually electrical signals that don't even have a clear definition of
> "bits" and bounce between two states for a few fractions of a second
> before settling. And maybe someone's implementing Python on the George
> Banks Kite CPU, which consists of two cents' worth of paper and
> string, on which text is actually represented by glyph. They're all
> equally valid notions of "underlying reality".
>
> Text is an abstract concept, just as numbers are.

The question is how tenable the illusion is. If the OS gave the
appropriate guarantees (say, all pathnames are encoded Unicode strings),
the abstraction could be maintained. Unfortunately, the legacy shines
through making you wonder if Python has overreached prematurely with its
Unicode HAL.


Marko