[Python-Dev] Distutils using apply (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido@python.org
Mon, 05 May 2003 09:47:12 -0400

Guido van Rossum wrote: >>Could someone please explain why apply() was marked deprecated ? > > Becase it's more readable, more efficient, and more flexible to write > f(x, y, *t) than apply(f, (x, y) + t).

True, but it's in wide use out there, so it shouldn't go until Python 3 is out the door.

And it won't. But that doesn't mean we can't add a PendingDeprecation warning for it.

BTW, shouldn't these deprecations be listed in e.g PEP 4 ?

There doesn't seem to be a single place to look for deprecated features and APIs (PEP 4 only lists modules).

That's a problem indeed.

I find it rather troublesome that deprecation seems to be using stealth mode of operation in Python development -- discussions about it rarely surface until someone complains about a warning relating to it. There should be open discussions about whether or not to deprecate functionality.

I believe the discussions are open enough (things like this are never decided at PythonLabs, but always brought out on python-dev). But it's easy to miss these discussions, and the records aren't always clear.

> Then maybe we should add something like operator.call.

Why remove a common API and reinvent it somewhere else ?

To reflect its demoted status.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)