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

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Mon Jan 30 23:04:28 CET 2012

On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 4:59 AM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net> wrote:

It would be nice if that pronouncement or decision could outline the steps required to include an "experimental" module in the stdlib, and the steps required to move it from "experimental" to "stable".

Actually, that's a good idea - Eli, care to try your hand at writing up a counter-PEP to 408 that more explicitly documents Guido's preferred approach?

It should document a standard note to be placed in the module documentation and in What's New for experimental/provisional/whatever modules. For example:

"The module has been included in the standard library on a provisional basis. While major changes are not anticipated, as long as this notice remains in place, backwards incompatible changes are permitted if deemed necessary by the standard library developers. Such changes will not be made gratuitously - they will occur only if serious API flaws are uncovered that were missed prior to inclusion of the module. If the small chance of such changes is not acceptable for your use, the module is also available from PyPI with full backwards compatibility guarantees." (include direct link to module on PyPI)

As far as the provisional->stable transition goes, I'd say there are a couple of options:

  1. Just make it part of the normal release process to ask for each provisional module "This hasn't been causing any dramas, shall we drop the provisional warning?"
  2. Explicitly create 'release blocker' tracker issues for the next release whenever a provisional module is added. These will basically say "either drop the provisional warning for module or bump this issue along to the next release"

Former is obviously easier, latter means we're less likely to forget to do it.

Cheers, Nick.

-- Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia

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