[Python-Dev] PEP 408 -- Standard library preview package (original) (raw)

Paul Moore p.f.moore at gmail.com
Fri Jan 27 23:02:00 CET 2012

On 27 January 2012 21:48, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:

Well, obviously preview is not for the most conservative users. I think the name clearly conveys the idea that you are trying out something which is not in its definitive state, doesn't it?

Agreed. But that in turn implies to me that preview.foo should not be maintained as an alias for foo once it gets "promoted". Firstly, because if you're not comfortable with changing your code to make the simple change to remove the preview prefix in the import, then how could you be comfortable with using a module with no compatibility guarantee anyway?

(BTW, I assume that the normal incantation would actually be "from preview import foo", as that limits the module name change to the import statement).

The idea that being on PyPI is sufficient is nice but flawed (the IPaddr example). PyPI doesn't guarantee any visibility (how many packages are there?). Furthermore, having users is not a guarantee that the API is appropriate, either; it just means that the API is appropriate for some users.

Agreed entirely. We need a way to signal somehow that a module is being seriously considered for stdlib inclusion. That would result in more uptake, and hence more testing and feedback. As an example, I would definitely try out MRAB's regex module if it were in preview, but even though I keep meaning to, I've never actually got round to bothering to download from PyPI - I end up just using the stdlib re for my one-off scripts.

On the other hand, preview would clearly signal that something is on the verge of being frozen as an official stdlib API, and would prompt people to actively try it.

Precisely. It's in effect a "last call for feedback", and people should view it that way, in my opinion.

Paul.

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