[Python-Dev] Negative times behaviour in itertools.repeat for Python maintenance releases (2.7, 3.3 and maybe 3.4) (original) (raw)

Ethan Furman ethan at stoneleaf.us
Wed Jan 29 06🔞37 CET 2014

On 01/28/2014 06:50 PM, Larry Hastings wrote:

See the recent discussion "Deprecation policy" right here in python-dev for a cogent discussion on this issue. I agree with Raymond's view, posted on 1/25: * A good use for deprecations is for features that were flat-out misdesigned and prone to error. For those, there is nothing wrong with deprecating them right away. Once deprecated though, there doesn't need to be a rush to actually remove it -- that just makes it harder for people with currently working code to upgrade to newer versions of Python. * When I became a core developer well over a decade ago, I was a little deprecation happy (old stuff must go, keep everything nice and clean, etc). What I learned though is that deprecations are very hard on users and that the purported benefits usually aren't really important.

I also agree with this view.

I think the "times behaves differently when passed by name versus passed by position" behavior falls exactly into this category, and its advice on how to handle it is sound.

I don't agree with this. This is a bug. Somebody going through (for example) a code review and making minor changes so the code is more readable shouldn't have to be afraid that [inserting | removing] the keyword in the function call is going to drastically [1] change the behavior. I understand the need for a cycle of deprecation [2], but not fixing it in 3.5 is folly.

-- Ethan

[1] or change the behavior at all, for that matter

[2] speaking of deprecations, are all the 3.1, 3.2, etc., etc., deprecations being added to 2.7?

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