Why does Python default to ASCII encoding?

Question

I've run into lots of bugs in Python due to the default ASCII encoding. I always have to remember to switch it to utf8

I wanted to know, is there any reason or benefit to a default ASCII encoding? It seems strictly worse than utf8, and causes annoying bugs. Am I missing something by always switching to utf8?

Because if you talk slow enough and loud enough in ASCII, every one will understand. :) — infixed
– infixed, Commented Sep 9, 2016 at 18:04

Martijn Pieters · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-09 18:31:01Z

5

Because Python 2 Unicode was built (back in 1999-2000) before UTF-8 was ubiquitous. ASCII on the other hand was understood by almost all target platforms using 8-bit codecs.

If you look at the Wikipedia UTF-8 adoption graph, you'll see that UTF-8 didn't really rise to popularity until 2006:

Only with Python 3 was it possible to change this default; there implicit encoding and decoding is gone, and the default source code encoding has been changed to UTF-8 (the default for printing, file I/O and filesystem names is system dependent, as it is in Python 2).

edited Sep 9, 2016 at 18:31

answered Sep 9, 2016 at 18:04

Martijn Pieters

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