[Python-Dev] PEP 414 - Unicode Literals for Python 3 (original) (raw)

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Mon Feb 27 13:14:17 CET 2012

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 9:34 PM, Giampaolo Rodolà <g.rodola at gmail.com> wrote:

If the main point of this proposal is avoiding an explicit 2to3 run on account of 2to3 being too slow then I'm -1.

No, the main point is that adding a compile step to the Python development process sucks. The slow speed of 2to3 is one factor, but single source is just far, far, easier to maintain than continually running 2to3 to get a working Python 3 version.

When we have the maintainers of major web frameworks and libraries telling us that this is a painful aspect for their ports (and, subsequently, the ports of their users), it would be irresponsible of us to ignore their feedback.

Sure, some early adopters are happy with the 2to3 process, that's not in dispute. However, many developers are not, and (just as relevant) many folks that haven't started their ports yet have highlighted it as one of the aspects that bothers them. Is restoring support for unicode literals a small retrograde step that partially undoes the language cleanup that occurred in 3.0? Yes, it is. However, it really does significantly increase the amount of 2.x code that will just run on Python 3 (or will run with minor tweaks). I can live with that - as MvL said, this is a classic case of practicality beating purity.

Cheers, Nick.

-- Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia

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