[Python-Dev] file() or open()? (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Wed Jul 7 17:51:48 CEST 2004

I presumed file() was preferred to open() for the simple reason that it says more explicitly what you are doing. You are constructing a file object. "open()" doesn't say whether you are opening a file or socket or window or folder or ...

open made sense in a Unix world where "everything was a file" (except that even then it wasn't really) but it is a poor name for the file opening function in a 21st century language.

Maybe you'll change your mind when open() can return other objects besides files. In the mean time, let's use the compatibility argument. Changing things just because a new century has started sounds like a fad to me -- IOW the argument "it's the modern thing to do" usually doesn't convince me.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

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