[Python-Dev] breaking list.append() (original) (raw)

Ken Manheimer klm@digicool.com
Tue, 29 Feb 2000 19:37:09 -0500 (EST)

On Wed, 1 Mar 2000, Mark Hammond wrote:

> Why don't we simply move forward with the assumption that PythonWin and > Scintilla will be updated?

Done :-) However, I think dropping it now is a little heavy handed. I decided to do a wider search and found a few in, eg, Sam Rushings calldll based ODBC package. Personally, I would much prefer a warning now, and drop it later. Then we can say we have made enough noise about it. It would only be 2 years ago that I became aware that this "feature" of append was not a feature at all - up until then I used it purposely, and habits are sometimes hard to change :-)

I agree with mark. Why the sudden rush?? It seems to me to be unfair to make such a change - one that will break peoples code - without advanced warning, which typically is handled by a deprecation period. There are going to be people who won't be informed of the change in the short span of less than a single release. Just because it won't cause you pain isn't a good reason to disregard the pain of those that will suffer, particularly when you can do something relatively low-cost to avoid it.

Ken klm@digicool.com