[Python-Dev] Thoughts fresh after EuroPython (original) (raw)

geremy condra debatem1 at gmail.com
Sun Jul 25 06:34:45 CEST 2010

On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 9:16 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 10:04:57 am Steve Holden wrote:

> - After seeing Raymond's talk about monocle (search for it on PyPI) > I am getting excited again about PEP 380 (yield from, return values > from generators). Having read the PEP on the plane back home I > didn't see anything wrong with it, so it could just be accepted in > its current form. Implementation will still have to wait for Python > 3.3 because of the moratorium. (Although I wouldn't mind making an > exception to get it into 3.2.)

I can understand the temptation, but hope you can manage to resist it. The downside of allowing such exceptions is that people won't take these pronouncements seriously if they see that a sufficiently desirable goal is a reason for ignoring them. Everyone should be subject to the same rules. I have no opinion on PEP 380 specifically, but surely a sufficiently desirable goal should be a reason for breaking the rules? Obedience to some abstract rule just because it is the rule is not a virtue. The moratorium is there to advance Python as a whole, and if (a big "if") it becomes a hindrance instead, then Guido should make an exception. I promise that I won't cease taking his pronouncements seriously if he does :)

I wasn't for the moratorium in the first place, so take this with a grain of salt, but ISTM that if you feel this doesn't impact the moratorium's goals then there's nothing logically inconsistent about allowing it through. Of course, if you feel like it does and you decide to let it through anyway, I think it would be worth explaining really well why exactly that happened.

Geremy Condra

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list