On Sat, Jan 23, 2021 at 9:04 PM Inada Naoki <songofaca...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Sat, Jan 23, 2021 at 10:47 AM Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > Highly dubious. I'd rather focus on just moving to UTF-8 as the > > default, rather than bringing in a new function - especially with such > > a confusing name. > > > > What exactly are the blockers on making open(fn) use UTF-8 by default? > > Backward compatibility. That's what PEP 597 tries to solve. > > 1. Add optional warning for `open()` call without specifying > `encoding` option. (PEP 597) > 2. (Several years later) Make the warning default. > 3. (Several years later) Change the default encoding. > > When (2) happens, users are forced to write `encoding="utf-8"` to > suppress the warning. > > But note that the default encoding is "utf-8" already in (most) Linux > including WSL, macOS, iOS, and Android. > And Windows user can read ASCII text files without specifying > `encoding` regardless default encoding is legacy codec or "utf-8". > So adding `, encoding="utf-8"` everywhere `open()` is used might be tedious > job.
Okay, but this (a) has a good end goal, and (b) is only backward-incompatible with its default - adding the encoding parameter makes your code compatible with all versions of Python. > On the other hand, if we add `open_text()`: > > * Replacing open with open_text is easier than adding `, encoding="utf-8"`. > * Teachers can teach to use `open_text` to open text files. Students > can use "utf-8" by default without knowing about what encoding is. > > So `open_text()` can provide better developer experience, without > waiting 10 years. But this has a far worse end goal - two open functions with subtly incompatible defaults, and a big question of "why should I choose this over that". And if you start using open_text, suddenly your code won't work on older Pythons. > > Can the proposals be written with that as the ultimate goal (even if > > it's going to take X versions and multiple deprecation phases), rather > > than aiming for a messy goal where people aren't sure which function > > to use? > > > > Ultimate goal is make the "utf-8" default. But I don't know when we > can change it. > So I focus on what we can do in near future (< 5 years, I hope). > Okay. If the goal is to make UTF-8 the default, may I request that PEP 597 say so, please? With a heading of "deprecation", it's not really clear what its actual goal is. >From the sound of things - and it's still possible I'm misreading PEP 597, my apologies if so - this open_text function wouldn't really solve anything much, and the original goal of "change the default encoding to UTF-8" is better served by 597. ChrisA _______________________________________________ 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/U6BL5RWB4OPDZNM3NEFO3UPPZEIVYKYZ/ Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
