[Python-Dev] PEP 383: Non-decodable Bytes in System Character Interfaces

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Dirkjan Ochtman wrote:
> On 22/04/2009 14:20, glyph at divmod.com wrote:
>> -1. On UNIX, character data is not sufficient to represent paths. We
>> must, must, must continue to have a simple bytes interface to these
>> APIs. Covering it up in layers of obscure encoding hacks will not make
>> the problem go away, it will just make it harder to understand.
> 
> As a hg developer, I have to concur. Keeping bytes-based APIs intact
> would make porting hg to py3k much, much easier. You may be able to
> imagine that dealing with paths correctly cross-platform on a VCS is a
> major PITA, and py3k is currently not helping the situation.

I find these statements contradicting:
py3k *is* keeping the byte-based APIs for file names intact, so
why is it not helping the situation, when this is what is needed
to make porting much, much easier?

Regards,
Martin