[Python-Dev] Confirming status of new modules in 3.4 (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Sat Mar 15 17:19:37 CET 2014

Maybe this would be a good subject for a series of blog posts? There is certainly plenty we have to say based on 20+ years of experience adding stuff to the stdlib (and not adding it).

On Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 8:55 AM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:

On 16 March 2014 01:40, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote: > On Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 4:02 AM, Giampaolo Rodola' <g.rodola at gmail.com> > wrote: > > This downside of using subclassing as an API should be well known by now and > widely warned against.

I've actually pondered the idea of suggesting we explicitly recommend the "procedural facade around an object oriented implementation" API design model in PEP 8, but it's not really a coding style guide issue, and I also haven't been able to come up with a good way of summarising it. That said, should we perhaps start codifying some of these principles as a "standard library API design guide"? We have a few additional issues to take into account that most software can ignore, like "assume that users that already know Python may be using the module and its documentation to learn a new domain, rather than the other way around, where a domain expert is just using the module to get things done". (That was the main driver for the differences between ipaddr and the accepted ipaddress API). The question about whether or not to add new boolean flags vs adding new APIs also comes up fairly often. At the moment, there's no real way for newcomers to pick up those principles other than hanging around long enough to see them come up again. Cheers, Nick. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan at gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia

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