[Python-Dev] Breaking undocumented API (original) (raw)

Steven D'Aprano steve at pearwood.info
Wed Nov 17 15:19:22 CET 2010

Łukasz Langa wrote:

Mutating PEP8 is bad form. We fight mercilessly over source code backwards compatibility so I think PEPs should be taken just as seriously in that regard.

There's no comparison between the two.

If you change your library's API -- not "source code", it doesn't matter if the source code changes so long as the interface remains backwards compatible -- then you will break other people's code.

If we change PEP 8, then all that will happen is that some people's coding style will no longer be exactly compatible with PEP 8. Their code will continue to work.

-- Steven

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