[Python-Dev] PEP 407 / splitting the stdlib (original) (raw)

Georg Brandl g.brandl at gmx.net
Wed Jan 18 19:46:38 CET 2012

Am 18.01.2012 18:56, schrieb Brett Cannon:

IOW we would have a language moratorium every 2 years (i.e. between LTS releases) while switching to a 6 month release cycle for language/VM bugfixes and full stdlib releases?

That is certainly a possibility (it's listed as an open issue in the PEP).

I would support that as it has several benefits from several angles.

From a VM perspective, it gives other VMs 2 years to catch up to the next release instead of 18 months; not a big switch, but still better than shortening it. It also makes disruptive language changes less frequent so people have more time to catch up, update books/docs, etc. We can also let them bake longer and we all get more experience with them.

Yes. In the end, the moratorium really was a good idea, and this would be carrying on the spirit.

Doing a release every 6 months that includes updates to the stdlib and bugfixes to the language/VM also benefits other VMs by getting compatibility fixes in faster. All of the other VM maintainers have told me that keeping the stdlib non-CPython compliant is the biggest hurdle. This kind of switch means they could release a VM that supports a release 6 months or a year after a language change release (e.g. 1 to 2 releases in) so as to get changes in faster and lower the need to keep their own fork.

It should also increase the chances of external developers of projects being willing to become core developers and contributing their project to Python. If they get to keep a 6 month release cycle we could consider pulling in project like httplib2 and others that have resisted inclusion in the stdlib because painfully long (for them) wait between releases.

Exactly!

Georg

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