[Python-Dev] Draft PEP: Deprecate codecs.StreamReader and codecs.StreamWriter (original) (raw)

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Thu Jul 7 11:00:48 CEST 2011

On Thu, Jul 7, 2011 at 6:49 PM, Vinay Sajip <vinay_sajip at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan gmail.com> writes:

Unless somebody steps forward to fix them, the Stream* classes have to go (albeit with a suitable period of deprecation). They're *actively harmful* in their current state, so retaining the status quo is not a viable option in this case. I can understand that there might be specific issues with them, but isn't "actively harmful" a little strong? I don't see who is being actively harmed by them, nor how.

Anyone forward porting codecs.open based code will get subpar IO in Python 3 because they're trying to do the right thing in Python 2. That's actively harmful in my book.

Codec writers are also told to implement utterly unnecessary functionality just because PEP 100 says so. Significantly less common, but still harmful.

The bare minimum change needed is for codecs.open() to do the right thing in Py3k and be a wrapper around builtin open() and the main IO stack. Once that happens, the legacy Stream* APIs become redundant cruft that should be deprecated (although that part is significantly less important than fixing codecs.open() itself)

Cheers, Nick.

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

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