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Guido van Rossum wrote in python-dev:

> True, the "codec" pattern can be used for other 
> encodings than Unicode.  But it seems to me that the
> entire codecs architecture is rather strongly geared
> towards en/decoding Unicode, and it's not clear
> how well other codecs fit in this pattern (e.g. I 
> noticed that all the non-Unicode codecs ignore the 
> error handling parameter or assert that
> it is set to 'strict').

I noticed that too. asserting that errors=='strict' would 
mean that the encoder is not able to deal in any other way 
with unencodable stuff than by raising an error. But that 
is not the problem here, because for zlib, base64, quopri, 
hex and uu encoding there can be no unencodable characters. 
The encoders can simply ignore the errors parameter. Should 
I remove the asserts from those codecs and change the 
docstrings accordingly, or will this be done separately?