[Python-Dev] PEP 594: Removing dead batteries from the standard library (original) (raw)

Terry Reedy tjreedy at udel.edu
Tue May 21 13:59:56 EDT 2019

On 5/21/2019 9:01 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote: ...

Many Python users don't have the privilege of being able to install arbitrary, unvetted packages from PyPI. They get to use only packages from approved vendors, including the stdlib, what they write themselves, and nothing else. Please don't dismiss this part of the Python community just because they don't typically hang around in the same forums we do. ...

The problem with this argument, taken by itself, it that it would argue for adding to the stdlib 100s or 1000s of modules or packages that would be useful to many more people than the modules proposed to be dropped. That would require multiplying the number of core developers by perhaps 10. We have thus far decided to not do this.

We have instead left sumo distributions with vetted (?) additions to other groups. But as it is, the stdlib is, as far as I last knew, richer than, for instance, the standard C stdlib.

Given that presence in the stdlib is restricted, what should be included. Is mere inertia a sufficient reason? I don't think it should be.

-- Terry Jan Reedy

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