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

Antoine Pitrou solipsis at pitrou.net
Tue Feb 28 12:52:26 CET 2012

On Tue, 28 Feb 2012 21:42:54 +1000 Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:

But the existing approaches require that, in order to be forward compatible with Python 3, a program must be made worse in Python 2 (i.e. harder to read and harder to write correctly for someone that hasn't learned Python 3 yet).

Wrong. The separate branches approach allows you to have a clean Python 3 codebase without crippling the Python 2 codebase. Of course that approach was downplayed from the start in favour of using 2to3 on a single codebase, and now we discover that this approach is cumbersome.

Note that 2to3 is actually helpful when you choose the dual branches approach, and it isn't a serial dependency in that case. (see https://bitbucket.org/pitrou/t3k/)

Regards

Antoine.

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