<html><body>On 05:51 pm, pje@telecommunity.com wrote:<br />>At 07:45 AM 3/15/2007 +0100, Martin v. Löwis wrote:<br />>>I apparently took the same position that you now take back then,<br />>>whereas I'm now leaning towards (or going beyond) the position<br />>>Tim had back then, who wrote "BTW, if it *weren't* for the code breakage,<br />>>I'd be in favor of doing this."<br />><br />>If it weren't for the code breakage, I'd be in favor too.  That's not the<br />>point.<br />><br />>The point is that how can Python be stable as a language if precedents can<br />>be reversed without a migration plan, just because somebody changes their<br />>mind?  In another five years, will you change your mind again, and decide<br />>to put this back the way it was?<br /><br />Hear, hear.  Python is _not_ stable as a language.  I have Java programs that I wrote almost ten years ago which still run perfectly on the latest runtime.  There is python software I wrote two years ago which doesn't work right on 2.5, and some of the Python stuff contemporary with that Java code won't even import.<br /><br />>Speaking as a business person, that seems to me... unwise.  When I found<br />>out that this change had been checked in despite all the opposition, my gut<br />>reaction was, "I guess I can't rely on Python any more", despite 10 years<br />>of working with it, developing open source software with it, and<br />>contributing to its development.  Because from a *business* perspective,<br />>this sort of flip-flopping means that moving from one "minor" Python<br />>version to another is potentially *very* costly.<br /><br />And indeed it is.  Python's advantages in terms of rapidity of development have, thus far, made up the difference for me, but it is threatening to become a close thing.  This is a severe problem and something needs to be done about it.<br /><br />>But as you are so fond of pointing out, there is no "many people".  There<br />>are only individual people.  That a majority want it one way, means that<br />>there is a minority who want it another.  If next year, it becomes more<br />>popular to have it the other way, will we switch again?  If a majority of<br />>people want braces and required type declarations, will we add them?<br /><br />And, in fact, there is not even a majority.  There is a *perception* of a majority.  There isn't even a *perception* of a majority of Python users, but a perception of a majority of python-dev readers, who are almost by definition less risk-averse when it comes to language change than anyone else!<br /><br />If we actually care about majorities, let's set up a voting application and allow Python users to vote on each and every feature, and publicize it each time such a debate comes up.  Here, I'll get it started:<br /><br />http://jyte.com/cl/python-should-have-a-strict-backward-compatibility-policy-to-guide-its-development<br /><br />According to that highly scientific study, at this point in time, "Nobody disagrees" :).  (One in favor, zero against.)<br /></body></html>