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On 26 Mar 2014 08:35, "Antoine Pitrou" <solipsis@pitrou.net> wrote:
\>
\> On Tue, 25 Mar 2014 23:09:45 +1000
\> Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan@gmail.com> wrote:
\> >
\> > Alternative: selectively backport particular APIs
\> > -------------------------------------------------
\> >
\> > An instinctively minimalist reaction to this proposal is to only backport
\> > particular APIs in the affected modules that are judged to be "security
\> > critical". However, this ends up providing a worse end user experience,
\> > as well as a worse developer experience.
\> >
\> > For end users, the selective backporting approach means learning not only
\> > the legacy Python 2.7 API and the current Python 3 APIs, but also the
\> > hybrid API created by the selective backporting process.
\>
\> I think this is a strawman, since you are also advocating for a
\> "feature detection" approach to writing cross-version code. It is
\> already required, actually, if wanting to write code compatible from
\> 3.2 to 3.4 (for example, SSLContext exists in 3.2 but
\> create\_default\_context appears in 3.4 while OP\_NO\_COMPRESSION appears
\> in 3.3).
\>
\> I would much rather selectively backport a minimal set of APIs than the
\> whole range of ssl APIs. There are things there (RAND\_bytes,
\> RAND\_pseudo\_bytes) that are not even useful for network security, or
\> only in a rather uncommon manner (such as channel bindings).

Yeah, I think this is a valid point, and, as Guido noted, we also want the option to skip backporting things if they depend on other aspects of Python 3 that we decide can't be backported.

So a feature-by-feature decision making process actually does make more sense than a blanket exemption.

Cheers,
Nick.

>
\> Regards
\>
\> Antoine.
\>
\>
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