[Python-Dev] User's complaints (original) (raw)

skip at pobox.com skip at pobox.com
Thu Jul 13 12:53:28 CEST 2006 

>> He clearly wasn't fully master of the environment in which his
>> customers ran his software, so I think it's understandable that he
>> was caught by surprise by this change.

Fredrik> a programmer that's surprised that code that relies on
Fredrik> undocumented behaviour might behave differently if run on a
Fredrik> different platform ?  *that's* surprising.

Not necessarily. He may not have realized his customers were going to upgrade their operating systems or that the upgrades would involve a new version of Python. Not everyone tracks every Python release. In this case, a) Python 2.4 had been out long enough to turn up in a new (presumably Linux) OS release, and b) since Mr. Black appears to program in Python for a living he should probably have been more attentive to new releases.

Maybe Mr. Black hadn't gotten around to testing his software with 2.4 yet. Maybe the software was written on-site for a client and he didn't have access to it to even test in his own environment.

Skip

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