Python startup time: milliseconds matter

Re:Python startup time: milliseconds matter by joshuamorton on Wednesday May 02, 2018 @05:56PM (#16981500)

The biggest thing is likely the str/unicode change. In py2, if working on a unix system with only ascii, you never had to think about strings. Suddenly with python3, you had to a little bit.

The gain was that for everyone else (read: web, non-English, anywhere where unicode is common), python became much easier to use. But for those specific english-unix-ascii cases, it was a mild inconvenience.

Edit: as ubernostrum pointed out, more than a mild inconvenience if you were porting code. If writing new code, it was not much worse, but porting was absolutely a pain.

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Re:Python startup time: milliseconds matter by eesmith on Wednesday May 02, 2018 @06:53PM (#16981868)

And I thought that if working with Python 2 on a MS Windows system, then you also didn't really have to think about strings. That is, Python's narrow Unicode strings matched the native UCS-2 of Windows.

I did some Python 2 programming under Windows and don't recall string issues; certainly fewer issues than I've had in dealing with Python 3 changes.

I agree that what we have now is an improvement. I just don't see why the old way was really Unix-centric.

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Re:Python startup time: milliseconds matter by netheril96 on Wednesday May 02, 2018 @08:48PM (#16982439)

> In py2, if working on a unix system with only ascii, you never had to think about strings.

On any system with only ASCII, you never had to think about strings. Unix is an irrelevant word in this sentence.

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