[Python-Dev] Re: Re: Missing arguments in RE functions (original) (raw)

Fredrik Lundh fredrik at pythonware.com
Sat Sep 11 10:47:17 CEST 2004

Michael Chermside wrote:

Fredrik, a less hostile response would be appropriate here. No one knows every detail of every API of any reasonably sized library (like Python's).

We're not talking about Python's library, we're talking about Python's RE library. It's not that big, really. The documentation is five moderately-sized HTML pages, plus a page with examples. Seven functions (plus two trivial variations) and two object types. You cannot use the library at all without knowing the stuff that's discussed on the first, third, and fifth page; the two other pages discuss pos/endpos issues within the first few paragraphs. Are we trying to optimize Python for people who won't read evenly-numbered sections?

On the whole, there are MORE indiviual "pieces" to the API but because of orthogonality the API as a whole is simpler.

Given that there's no way to order the arguments consistently (since some arguments apply to the compilation process, other to the match process), you're obviously using "orthogonal" and "simple" in the Perl sense ;-)

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