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

[Antoine Pitrou]

Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen <at> xemacs.org> writes:
> 
> Excuse me, but I can't see a scheme that encodes bytes as Unicodes but
> only sometimes as a "clean separation".

Yet it is. Filenames are all unicode, without exception, and there's no implicit
conversion to bytes. That's a clean separation.

> So what you'll get here, AFAICS, is a new situation where many
> Windows-centric programmers will produce code that's incapable of
> dealing with non-Unicode input because they don't have to care about
> the distinction between Unicode and bytes.

I don't understand what you're saying. py3k filenames are all unicode, even on
POSIX systems, so where is the problem with/for Windows programmers?