On 29. 04. 22 19:02, Guido van Rossum wrote:
On Fri, Apr 29, 2022 at 10:15 AM Petr Viktorin <encukou@gmail.com <mailto:encukou@gmail.com>> wrote:
On 29. 04. 22 16:32, Victor Stinner wrote: > Ok, let me start with the serious business: API name. > > I'm not comfortable with "semi-stable". Python already has a "limited > API" and a "stable ABI". Just by its name, it's unclear what > "semi-stable" means. [...] Nick Coghlan argued against that term: [...] But I also like “unstable” better than “semi-stable”. Splitting the internals into “private”/“internal” and “unstable” seems reasonable.
I think picking "semi-stable" would be giving in to the OCD nerd in all of us. :-) While perhaps technically less precise, "unstable" is the catchy name with the right association. (And yes, we should keep it stable within bugfix releases, but the name doesn't need to reflect that detail.) The "internal API" isn't an API at all (except for CPython core developers and contributors). The "unstable API" would definitely be an *API* for users outside the core.
So let's please go with "unstable".
Thanks, you worded that perfectly! Alright, the PEP now uses “unstable” rather than “semi-stable”. And I don't see any issues with the technical details, so I'll see if it can still get into Python 3.11. Hopefully Pablo agrees as the Release Manager. Thanks for the discussion, everyone!