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To: python-list@python.org
From: Robin Becker <robin@reportlab.com>
Subject: Re: Python 3.2 has some deadly infection
Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 15:18:19 +0100
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Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:72521

........
> The problem is that causal readers like Robin sometimes jump from 'In Python 3,
> it can be hard to do something one really ought not to do' to 'Binary I/O is
> hard in Python 3' -- which is is not.
>
I'm fairly causal and I did understand that the rant was a bit over the top for 
fairly practical reasons I have always regarded the std streams as allowing 
binary data and always objected to having to open files in python with  a 't' or 
'b' mode to cope with line ending issues.

Isn't it a bit old fashioned to think everything is connected to a console?

I think the idea that we only give meaning to binary data using encodings is a 
bit limiting. A zip or gif file has structure, but I don't think it's reasonable 
to regard such a file as having an encoding in the python unicode sense.
-- 
Robin Becker