[Python-Dev] bytes / unicode

[Guido van Rossum]

On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 8:30 AM, Tres Seaver <tseaver at palladion.com> wrote:
> Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
>
>> We do need str-based implementations of modules like urllib.
>
> Why would that be?  URLs aren't text, and never will be.  The fact that
> to the eye they may seem to be text-ish doesn't make them text.  This
> *is* a case where "dont make me think" is a losing propsition:
> programmers who work with URLs in any non-opaque way as text are
> eventually going to be bitten by this issue no matter how hard we wave
> our hands.

This has been asserted and contested several times now, and I don't
see the two positions getting any closer.

So I propose that we drop the discussion "are URLs text or bytes" and
try to find something more pragmatic to discuss.

For example: how we can make the suite of functions used for URL
processing more polymorphic, so that each developer can choose for
herself how URLs need to be treated in her application.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)