[Python-Dev] PEP 460: allowing %d and %f and mojibake (original) (raw)

Greg Ewing greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
Tue Jan 14 01:06:06 CET 2014

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

PBP doesn't think it's a great idea to pass around bytes that are implicitly some other type, but didn't mind it (or got used to it) in Python 2, and so they're not looking at that as a problem that Python 3 can solve. They're looking at Python 3 as the problem that prevents them from doing what worked fine in Python 2.

While some people may think that way, I don't think it's fair to characterise all proponents of bytes formatting as luddites that refuse to get with the Python 3 way.

Some of us do understand the principles of text/ bytes separation in Python 3 and agree that they're a good idea. We just don't agree that the proposed formatting operations violate those principles to any degree worth worrying about.

I don't think of my viewpoint as being PBP. That term assumes there is purity there to be beaten. To my mind, any notion of purity with respect to bytes objects went out the window as soon as it was given a pile of text methods -- together with a text-like literal syntax and default repr(), even though at least half the time they're completely inappropriate!

-- Greg

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