Agree but Unicode is a rather complicated diversion. In a lot of circumstances it's not really required as well. It's definitely a reading on subject.
Also, bstr stops a lot of simple tasks looking impossible and therefore motivates people.
Further to that, if you consider Java, Python, C# etc, you're using massive libraries at a very high abstraction level and it is considered normal. There isn't anything built into C like that.
I agree completely with you on all counts. He didn't made a wrong choice with bstrlib by far. I just felt there was a strong movement in recent years to move towards utf in general, so why not expose beginners to it as well, just as a part of overall strategy. It's not a trivial issue to tackle though for sure.
Also, bstr stops a lot of simple tasks looking impossible and therefore motivates people.
Further to that, if you consider Java, Python, C# etc, you're using massive libraries at a very high abstraction level and it is considered normal. There isn't anything built into C like that.