On 18/03/2016 21:02, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com>:
On Sat, Mar 19, 2016 at 2:26 AM, Marko Rauhamaa <ma...@pacujo.net> wrote:
It may be that Python's Unicode abstraction is an untenable illusion
because the underlying reality is 8-bit and there's no way to hide it
completely.
The underlying reality is 1-bit. Or maybe the underlying reality is
actually electrical signals that don't even have a clear definition of
"bits" and bounce between two states for a few fractions of a second
before settling. And maybe someone's implementing Python on the George
Banks Kite CPU, which consists of two cents' worth of paper and
string, on which text is actually represented by glyph. They're all
equally valid notions of "underlying reality".
Text is an abstract concept, just as numbers are.
The question is how tenable the illusion is. If the OS gave the
appropriate guarantees (say, all pathnames are encoded Unicode strings),
the abstraction could be maintained. Unfortunately, the legacy shines
through making you wonder if Python has overreached prematurely with its
Unicode HAL.
Marko
I have no idea at what the above can mean, other than that you are
agreeing with the RUE.
--
My fellow Pythonistas, ask not what our language can do for you, ask
what you can do for our language.
Mark Lawrence
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https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
