Python 2's handling of Unicode basically isn't. That's as much the fault of third party libraries as the core language, but it is a real and constant time suck.

Python 2's handling of Unicode basically isn't. That's as much the fault of third party libraries as the core language, but it is a real and constant time suck. I'm sure I hit Unicode problems in Python 3 a few years ago as well, but if current versions are better that would be a sufficient reason for switching.