Re: Proposed Modules, My Take

[James Henstridge <james jamesh id au>]

Sean Middleditch wrote:

> API basically equals ABI in Python terms.  Python *does* break both for
> Python apps (features deprecated in 2.2 are removed in 2.3, and so on).
> The Python version is also a lot like a library soname.  Imagine if
> GNOME said that libxml is guaranteed to be available, and is guaranteed
> to have a particular API, the symbols/behavior won't change, but it
> might be called libxml.so.1 on one machine and libxml.so.30 on another.
> Even though the API didn't change you are still then forced to recompile
> your app for every target distro - that's especially silly when you're
> using an interpreted language like Python.
>  
Could you please bring up some real examples of the breakage you are 
worried about, rather than hypothetical situations?

So far the objection you seem to have raised is that if you compile your 
app on a system providing one ABI and copy the binary to a system 
providing a different ABI, the application may not function.  This 
problem is not unique to Python.

As far as Python standard library features being deprecated or removed, 
you make it sound like the Python developers do this on a whim rather 
than considering whether a feature is being used and giving developers 
ample warning about such changes.

James.