I agree with the numerous posters who have brought up the backward-compatibility concern. This change *would* break lots of code. At the same time, this bites me consistently, so I'd like to do something soon... at least sooner than 6.0 ;).
I believe that this is better solved by static analysis. I suggested some time ago on typing-sig that we explore adding a `Chr` type to typing, and type `str` as a `Sequence[Chr]` rather than a `Sequence[str]`. You can read the proposal here (it's not very complex at all, and should be backward-compatible for all but the hairiest cases, which just need either a cast or an annotation): https://mail.python.org/archives/list/typing-...@python.org/thread/OLCQHSNCLM2TOHRQWB3WPSI66AA5A3G7 With it, we have a path forward where type-checkers like mypy assure us that we're really doing what we think we're doing with that string, and require explicit annotations or casts for the ambiguous cases. That discussion fizzled out, but I'm still very much interested in exploring the idea if it seems like a realistic alternative. I think it makes much more sense than changing the mostly-sensible, well-known, often-used runtime behavior of strings. Brandt _______________________________________________ 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/IZAH5AJBPZWEZKCORAZGQ6QZZRGMC2WT/ Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
