This is really a pointer to the fact that some or all of the win32api should be moved into the core - registry access is the thing people most want, but there are plenty of other useful things that people reguarly use...
Guido objects to the coding style, but hopefully that wont be a big issue. IMO, the coding style isnt "bad" - it is just more an "MS" flavour than a "Python" flavour - presumably people reading the code will have some experience with Windows, so it wont look completely foreign to them. The good thing about taking it "as-is" is that it has been fairly well bashed on over a few years, so is really quite stable. The final "coding style" issue is that there are no "doc strings" - all documentation is embedded in C comments, and extracted using a tool called "autoduck" (similar to "autodoc"). However, Im sure we can arrange something there, too.
That's a good summary of the status quo. I would appreciate it if win32all could become part of the core. However the coding style issues need to be addressed (I also believe that it needs to be compiled in C++ mode). One concern that Mark doesn't mention is that there are some safety issues -- you can abuse some of the calls to cause segfaults, whether intentional or by mistake, and that's not a good thing. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)