[Python-Dev] PEP 393 Summer of Code Project (original) (raw)

Terry Reedy tjreedy at udel.edu
Wed Aug 24 20:46:21 CEST 2011

On 8/24/2011 1:50 PM, "Martin v. Löwis" wrote:

I'd like to point out that the improved compatibility is only a side effect, not the primary objective of the PEP.

Then why does the Rationale start with "on systems only supporting UTF-16, users complain that non-BMP characters are not properly supported."?

A Windows user can only solve this problem by switching to *nix.

The primary objective is the reduction in memory usage.

On average (perhaps). As I understand the PEP, for some strings, Windows users will see a doubling of memory usage. Statistically, that doubling is probably more likely in longer texts. Ascii-only Python code and other limited-to-ascii text will benefit. Typical English business documents will see no change as they often have proper non-ascii quotes and occasional accented characters, trademark symbols, and other things.

I think you have the objectives backwards. Adding memory is a lot easier than switching OSes.

-- Terry Jan Reedy

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