[Python-Dev] Bring new features to older python versions (original) (raw)

Giampaolo Rodolà g.rodola at gmail.com
Sat Oct 8 18:57:47 CEST 2011

Hello everybody, at work we're using different versions of python, from 2.4 to 2.7. Because of the differences between the various versions in terms of features we have a "util.pycompat" module which basically is a copy & paste of different features which were added to stdlib in every new major version throughout the years. What we do is basically this. Instead of:

from collections import namedtuple, OrderedDict import fractions

...we do:

from util.pycompat.collections import namedtuple, OrderedDict from util.pycompat import fractions # py 2.6 from util.pycompat.builtins import all, any # py 2.5

etc...

This let us use different stdlib features which appeared in latest Python versions (including 3.2) throughout all our code base. Now, what I have in mind is to release this as a public module so that everyone who cannot upgrade to a recent python version can benefit of newer features. By taking a quick look at the various "what's new" documents this is a brief list of what this module would include:

functools (2.5) any, all builtins (2.5) collections.defaultdict (2.5) property setters/deleters (2.6) abc (2.6) fractions (2.6) collections.OrderedDict (2.7) collections.Counter (2.7) unittest2 (2.7) functools.lru_cache (3.2) functools.total_ordering (3.2) itertools.accumulate (3.2) reprlib (3.2) contextlib.ContextDecorator (3.2)

I have a couple of doubts about this though. The first one is about licensing. What I would be doing is basically copy & paste pieces of the python stdlib modules (including tests) and, where needed, adjust them so that they work with older python versions. Would this represent problem?

My second doubt is about morality. Although this might be useful to those people who are forced to use older python versions, on the other hand it might represent an incentive for not upgrading (and there will be python 3.X features as well). Or maybe it won't, I don't know, point is I feel kind of guilty. =)

I'd like to hear your opinions, especially about the second point.

Best regards,

--- Giampaolo http://code.google.com/p/pyftpdlib/ http://code.google.com/p/psutil/

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list