[Python-Dev] PEP 411: Provisional packages in the Python standard library (original) (raw)

Eric Snow ericsnowcurrently at gmail.com
Sat Feb 11 22:14:10 CET 2012

On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 11:32 PM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 1:39 PM, Eric Snow <ericsnowcurrently at gmail.com> wrote:

Is there more to it than having a simple provisional attribute on the module and/or a list at sys.provisionalmodules? Yes. As soon as we touch functional code, it because something to be tested and the process overhead on our end is noticeably higher. However, I'd be fine with requiring that a short form for the notice appear at the start of the module docstring. For example: "The API of this module is currently provisional. Refer to the documentation for details." This would then be seen by pydoc and help(), as well as being amenable to programmatic inspection.

Sounds good enough to me. Realistically, the utility of getting provisional modules distributed with the stdlib far outweighs the theoretical use cases of programmatic inspection. If something like "provisional" turns out to be really useful, that bridge can be crossed later. I certainly don't want this PEP bogged down by a relatively superfluous point. :)

-eric

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