[scrollaway]

> even when I'm manipulating byte strings

What? No you don't. The `bytes` object is what you want when you deal with byte strings.

[Avernar]

The bytes object is not a string type. It's treated more like a list of integers. It has very little string operations. Only in 3.5 did they add back the ability to % format.

Not to mention all the b prefixes it just becomes painful.