On Sat, Jan 23, 2021 at 10:47 AM Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Highly dubious. I'd rather focus on just moving to UTF-8 as the > default, rather than bringing in a new function - especially with such > a confusing name. > > What exactly are the blockers on making open(fn) use UTF-8 by default?
Backward compatibility. That's what PEP 597 tries to solve. 1. Add optional warning for `open()` call without specifying `encoding` option. (PEP 597) 2. (Several years later) Make the warning default. 3. (Several years later) Change the default encoding. When (2) happens, users are forced to write `encoding="utf-8"` to suppress the warning. But note that the default encoding is "utf-8" already in (most) Linux including WSL, macOS, iOS, and Android. And Windows user can read ASCII text files without specifying `encoding` regardless default encoding is legacy codec or "utf-8". So adding `, encoding="utf-8"` everywhere `open()` is used might be tedious job. On the other hand, if we add `open_text()`: * Replacing open with open_text is easier than adding `, encoding="utf-8"`. * Teachers can teach to use `open_text` to open text files. Students can use "utf-8" by default without knowing about what encoding is. So `open_text()` can provide better developer experience, without waiting 10 years. > Can the proposals be written with that as the ultimate goal (even if > it's going to take X versions and multiple deprecation phases), rather > than aiming for a messy goal where people aren't sure which function > to use? > Ultimate goal is make the "utf-8" default. But I don't know when we can change it. So I focus on what we can do in near future (< 5 years, I hope). Regards, -- Inada Naoki <songofaca...@gmail.com> _______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list -- python-ideas@python.org To unsubscribe send an email to python-ideas-le...@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-ideas.python.org/ Message archived at https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-ideas@python.org/message/KGQFKMX2GBDIYITJCM6MHAS5ZGUA6YDL/ Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
