>>94
How about using the correct comparison operators to answer the question asked, instead of carefully constructing misleading code to support your arguments. Python most certainly differentiates between the two; that's why there are DIFFERENT CLASSES for unicode and str. You can set a coding for a Python file, which defaults to ASCII, and that is what you're testing - that the Unicode representation of a string is equal to the ASCII representation.

>>> 'foo' is 'foo'
True
>>> 'foo' is u'foo'
False

> You shouldn't listen to me.

Done. I shall now fully ignore this thread, for it gets stupider with every post.