Why do you say surprisingly? I've been aware of the bytes/string split for a long time since it's probably Python 3's most prominent change, so I certainly was

Why do you say surprisingly? I've been aware of the bytes/string split for a long time since it's probably Python 3's most prominent change, so I certainly wasn't surprised by it. The surprising part for me (after having read complaints about this change over the years) is that I haven't had any trouble with it.