[Python-Dev] Python-3.0, unicode, and os.environ

Mon Dec 8 10:54:54 CET 2008

On approximately 12/8/2008 12:57 AM, came the following characters from 
the keyboard of Stephen J. Turnbull:
> "Internal decoding" is (or should be) an oxymoron. Why would your
> software be passing around text in any format other than internal? So
> decoding will happen (a) on I/O, which is itself almost certainly
> slower than making a few checks for Unicode hygiene, or (b) on receipt
> of data from other software that whose sanitation you shouldn't trust
> more than you trust the Internet.
>> Encoding isn't a problem, AFAICS.

So I can see validating user supplied data, which always comes in via I/O.
But during manipulation of internal data, including file and database 
I/O, there is a need for encoding and decoding also. If all the data 
has already been validated, then there would be no need to revalidate on 
every conversion.
I hear you when you say that clever coding can make the validation 
nearly free, and I applaud that: the UTF-8 coder that I wrote predated 
most of the rules that have been created since, so I didn't attempt to 
be clever in that regard.
Thanks to you and Adam for your explanations; I see your points, and if 
it is nearly free, I withdraw most of my negativity on this topic.
-- 
Glenn -- http://nevcal.com/
===========================
A protocol is complete when there is nothing left to remove.
-- Stuart Cheshire, Apple Computer, regarding Zero Configuration Networking