[Python-Dev] Re: Stability and change (original) (raw)

Paul Prescod paul@prescod.net
Tue, 09 Apr 2002 02:02:39 -0700

"Fred L. Drake, Jr." wrote:

... PyXML is specifically maintaining compatibility, which means I have to work around the lack of weakrefs when removing reference cycles. The differences between the Python standard library and PyXML, for modules present in both, is mostly trivial still, but the differences are growing. ;-( (It's enough to make me think that Andrew may have been right about not integrating the XML support the way we did.)

I don't see the relationship between the first paragraph and the last. PyXML maintains compatibility because its maintainers care about old versions of Python. That causes your headache, whether XML support is in Python itself or not. The cure for the pain is the same as for any other third-party module: tie newer releases to newer Python versions. That said, I think that the relationship between PyXML and Python is weird too. As I said at the last conference I'd clean it up by making PyXML a package unrelated to Python XML, but I was roundly voted down.

Paul Prescod