On 07/06/18 17:55, Ethan Merritt wrote:
I gather that one cluster of recent breakage is incompatible changes to text handling. I cannot speak to this issue from personal experience, but here is a pointer to recent complaints/arguments/counter-arguments. https://lwn.net/Articles/741176/
I'm not going to take sides in the Python 2 vs. 3 issue, or comment on how well the transition between the two is being handled (these days, I rarely code in Python). However this sentence from the lwn.net article:
This change could, of course, cause problems for those who are actually expecting (and wanting) to get ASCII-only behavior.
reminds me for just how long arguments about character data have been going on. Also how strongly held people's opinions about it are. Here is what Joel Spolsky had to say back in 2003:
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/10/08/the-absolute-minimum-every-software-developer-absolutely-positively-must-know-about-unicode-and-character-sets-no-excuses/ TL;DR?
You can no longer stick your head in the sand and pretend that “plain” text is ASCII. There Ain’t No Such Thing As Plain Text.
If you disagree with Joel Spolsky about this, flame him, not me ;-) Regards, Peter. -- Peter Keller Tel.: +44 (0)1223 353033 Global Phasing Ltd., Fax.: +44 (0)1223 366889 Sheraton House, Castle Park, Cambridge CB3 0AX United Kingdom ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the CCP4BB list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=CCP4BB&A=1
