> A lot of people reach for string handling when the actual correct thing to do is intentionally avoid string handling, and only handle strings as opaque encode

> A lot of people reach for string handling when the actual correct thing to do is intentionally avoid string handling, and only handle strings as opaque encoded UTF-8 bytes, that cannot be reasoned about in terms of human language. I have lost count of how many times I have wanted to find substrings, transform cases, catenate strings, find patterns, substitute patterns. I'd be happy to do that in a language that didn't permit me to index the underlyinc characters or the bytes. Keep 'em opaque, sure. But I think it would be a mistake for a language not to have an idiom with a favorite library to perform these operations on encoded text. If resolving library dependencies is easy enough, then it doesn't need to be "standard" but it should be "the defacto standard." And if it turns out the defacto standard stagnates and doesn't keep up with the needs of developers, a new one can come take its place.