[Python-Dev] Raising objections (original) (raw)

Barry Warsaw barry at python.org
Thu Apr 20 16:43:03 CEST 2006

On Thu, 2006-04-20 at 07:53 +0200, "Martin v. Löwis" wrote:

> Sometimes you have to rewrite. I point to > urllib->urllib2, asyncore->twisted, rfc822/mimelib/&c->email.

If I had the time, I would question each of these. Yes, it is easier for the author of the new package to build "in the green", but it is (nearly) never necessary, and almost always bad for the project.

Actually, it's not always easier to rewrite from scratch. In fact, I think it's rarely easier to do so than to just patch up bugs here and there in something that already exists, or wedge in hacks to minimally extend it to keep up with new standards or uses.

But sometimes the fundamental model of how something works just will no longer cut it, and something better must be designed, argued about, written, tested, documented, beta released, feedback gathered, bugs accepted, patches accepted, re-released, maintained, backward compatibility supported forever, etc. etc. Oh wait, yes definitely easier to rewrite .

way-off-topic-now-ly y'rs, -Barry

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