[Python-Dev] Divorcing str and unicode (no more implicitconversions). (original) (raw)

Josiah Carlson jcarlson at uci.edu
Tue Oct 25 21:17:10 CEST 2005

"Martin v. Löwis" <martin at v.loewis.de> wrote:

Fredrik Lundh wrote: > however, for Python 3000, it would be nice if the source-code encoding applied > to the entire file (XML-style), rather than just unicode string literals and (hope- > fully) comments and docstrings. As MAL explains, the encoding currently does apply to the entire file. However, because of the Python syntax, you are restricted to ASCII in many places, such as keywords, number literals, and (unfortunately) identifiers. Lifting the restriction on identifiers is on my agenda.

It seems that removing this restriction may cause serious issues, at least in the case when using cyrillic characters in names. See recent security issues in regards to web addresses in web browsers for the confusion (and/or name errors) that could result in their use.

While I agree in principle that people should be able to use the entirety of one's own natural language in writing software in programming languages, I think that it is an ugly can of worms that perhaps shouldn't be opened.

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