Re: External Deps: Minimal Python dependency

[Sebastian Pölsterl <marduk k-d-w org>]

Johan Dahlin schrieb:
> Sebastian Pölsterl wrote:
> > Vincent Untz schrieb:
> > > Le mardi 22 juillet 2008, à 17:56 +0200, Sebastian Pölsterl a écrit :
> > > > Hi!
> > > >
> > > > As mentioned in [1] sqlite is a blessed external dependency now. I 
> > > > want  to use sqlite for Deskbar-Applet, too. Because, Python 2.5 has 
> > > > a  built-in sqlite module I suggest increasing the minimal version 
> > > > to 2.5  from currently 2.4.3 . Of course, Python 2.5 has more 
> > > > benefits [2].
> > > >
> > > > [1]:  
> > > > http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2008-July/msg00090.html 
> > > >
> > > > [2]: http://docs.python.org/whatsnew/whatsnew25.html
> > >
> > > (heh, I should read ddl before replying to mails)
> > >
> > > So, I took a quick look at the second link. That's all cool, but can we
> > > get an overview of what is really useful in there for us?
> > >
> > > Vincent
> > * Various speed improvements regarding re module, sets, unicode 
> > operations (substring, split, en-/decode) and handling exceptions [1].
>
> I don't understand why optimizations is an argument in bumping the 
> minimum required version. Sure, those who want to make their python program
> can upgrade, but is the intention really to tell users of 2.4 that they 
> can't use it because we think it's too slow?
>
> > * New ElementTree package for processing XML. It's easy to understand 
> > and fast.
>
> Available as an external module.
>
>  > * New hashlib package which supports previously unsupported SHA-224,
>  > SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512.
>
> I bet this is not useful for any GNOME applications.
>
> > * New ctypes package which lets you load libraries and calling 
> > functions in them.
>
> Available as an external module.
>
> Which leaves us with the 'with statement' as a new feature worthwhile to 
> upgrade for.
>
> Is it worth telling users of RHEL5, Debian Etch etc that they can't use 
> the GNOME release because you want to use the with statement in your 
> code? Is it really that difficult to write code without using it?
Sure, depending on python 2.5 only for the with statement makes no 
sense. It's fine with me to use either the built-in sqlite module if 
available or the external module. I wasn't ware that requiring python 
2.5 would cause so much trouble for users of above distros, because 
python 2.5 is already around for over one and a half years.

--
Greetings,
Sebastian Pölsterl