How to waste computer memory?

[Mark Lawrence]

On 18/03/2016 21:02, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
> 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
>

I have no idea at what the above can mean, other than that you are 
agreeing with the RUE.

-- 
My fellow Pythonistas, ask not what our language can do for you, ask
what you can do for our language.

Mark Lawrence