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

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Sun Jul 25 08:29:32 CEST 2010

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 2:16 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 :)

We knew PEP 380 would be hurt by the moratorium when the moratorium PEP went through.

The goals of the moratorium itself, in making it possible to have a 3.2 release that is fully supported by all of the major Python implementations, still apply, and I believe making an exception for PEP 380 would make those goals much harder to achieve.

So, while I can understand Guido's temptation (PEP 380 is pretty cool), I'm among those that hope he resists that temptation. Letting these various ideas bake a little longer without syntactic support likely won't hurt either.

Cheers, Nick.

-- Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia

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