[Python-Dev] PEP 408 -- Standard library preview package (original) (raw)

Michael Foord fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk
Sat Jan 28 17:09:08 CET 2012

On 28/01/2012 13:55, Matt Joiner wrote:

preview would fall into this category as well). And yet I have essentially no means of gaining access to any 3rd party modules, whether they are packaged by the distro or obtained from PyPI. (And "build your own" isn't an option in many cases, if only because a C compiler may well not be available!) This is essentially due to corporate inertia and bogged down "do-nothing" policies rather than due dilligence or supportability concerns. But it is a reality for me (and many others, I suspect).

Having said this, of course, the same corporate inertia means that Python 3.3 is a pipe-dream for me in those environments for many years yet. So ignoring them may be reasonable. You clearly want access to external modules sooner. A preview namespace addresses this indirectly. The separated stdlib versioning concept is far superior for this use case. There are two proposals for the standard library - one is to do development in a separate repository to make it easier for other implementations to contribute. To my understanding this proposal is mildly controversial, but doesn't involve changing the way the standard library is distributed or versioned.

A separate proposal about standard library versioning has been floated but is much more controversial and therefore much less likely to happen. So I wouldn't hold your breath on it...

All the best,

Michael Foord

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