Message 56708 - Python tracker

I have no desire or time to continue this discussion.  The ASCII
assumption will be ingrained as deeply or deeper in 3.0 than in 2.x,
just like 8-bit bytes and 2's complement.  The computer industry has
chosen, and there just isn't any incentive to invent abstractions for
properties that are constant in 99.999999% of all practical situations.