[Python-Dev] Removing Non-Unicode Support?

Mon Feb 20 01:34:38 CET 2006

Neal Norwitz wrote:
> On 2/17/06, M.-A. Lemburg <mal at egenix.com> wrote:
>>>Neal Norwitz wrote:
> >
>>Another candidate for removal is the --disable-unicode
>>switch.
>>>>We should probably add a deprecation warning for that in
>>Py 2.5 and then remove the hundreds of
>>#idef Py_USING_UNICODE
>>from the source code in time for Py 2.6.
>> I've heard of a bunch of people using --disable-unicode. I'm not sure
> if it's curiosity or if there are really production builds without
> unicode. Ask this on c.l.p too.

Such a switch quite likely is useful to those creating Python interpreters 
for small hand-held devices, where space is at a premium. I would hesitate 
to remove switches to drop features in general, for that reason.
Although I have played with reducing the footprint of Python, I am not 
currently doing so. I could never get the footprint down sufficiently to 
make it usable, unfortunately. But I would like to see the Python 
developers maintain an awareness of memory consumption and not assume that 
Python is always run on modern fully-loaded desktops. We are seeing 
increasing use of Python in embedded systems these days.
-Jeff