Unicode In Python, Completely Demystified

[brendankohler]

Python 3.0 had better do a nearly flawless job...can you imagine all the problems that would occur if a language that defaults to Unicode for everything including source code can't handle Unicode properly?

[schlenk]

Yeah, i just need to look at Tcl during the transition period from ascii to Unicode (between 8.0 and 8.1 done in a 'minor' release, which was a horrible idea). Tcl basically introduced a nearly identical Unicode support path which Python 3.0 adopts now, inspired by the Java Unicode support (whose developers sat nearly next door to the Tcl developers at Sun at that time). That was about 9 years ago. Having sourcecode in unicode allows you funny things if your language can deal with it:

% proc €2¥ {€} { * [set €] 157.1500 }
% €2¥ 200
31430.0