[marcosdumay]

Haskell get things much better than Python.

For example, if you use `readFile` from Data.Text, you'll use utf-8 names and read utf-8 content. If you use `readFile` from Data.ByteString, you'll use utf-8 names and read utf-8 content. You just import whatever you want at the local namespace and use it.

If you define a conversion procedure, you can make code that accepts either text or bytes, and return either one too, automatically. The tools for working with text have equivalents for working with bytes too, whenever that makes sense. Combining text with bytes is a type error, but there are so many shortcuts for going from one to the other that one barely notices them (unless you are concerned about performance, then you will notice).

That small article is basically all that you have to read to be productive dealing with text and bytes differences.

[joshuamorton]

Pretty much everything you've described is possible in Python. The open function can return bytes or utf8, depending on what you ask for, and converting between the two is simply a call to .decode or .encode.

Combing text with bytes is a type error.

There, you're ready for text in python3.