[Python-Dev] IO implementation: in C and Python? (original) (raw)

Steven D'Aprano steve at pearwood.info
Fri Feb 20 06:35:03 CET 2009

Guido van Rossum wrote:

On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 8:38 PM, Brett Cannon <brett at python.org> wrote:

On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 19:41, Benjamin Peterson <benjamin at python.org> wrote:

As we prepare to merge the io-c branch, the question has come up [1] about the original Python implementation. Should it just be deleted in favor C version? The wish to maintain the two implementations together has been raised on the basis that Python is easier to experiment on and read (for other vm implementors). Probably not a surprise, but +1 from me for keeping the pure Python version around for the benefit of other VMs as well as a reference implementation. You have been practice channeling me again, haven't you? I like the idea of having two (closely matching) implementations very much. In 2.x we did this on an ad-hoc basis, e.g. [c]StringIO, pickle/cPickle, heapq/heapq. In 3.0 we've moved towards standardizing the approach -- the foo.py file first defines everything and then tries to import * from foo on top of that.

Currently, if I want to verify that (say) cFoo and Foo do the same thing, or compare their speed, it's easy because I can import the modules separately. Given the 3.0 approach, how would one access the Python versions without black magic or hacks?

-- Steven

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