While I played with this idea a long time ago as well, I have since found that it causes more trouble than it's worth. Apart from having the user to maintain at least two different versioned packages (Python and (part of) the stdlib), it also causes problems if you use this Python installation for more than one project: it's easily possible to have project A require version 2 or a stdlib module and project B version 3 of that same module. If you then load both projects in an application, you end up either with a broken project A or B (depending on whether you have version 2 or 3 of that stdlib module installed), or you allow loading multiple versions of the same module, in which case you will likely break you application, since it will find multiple class implementations (and objects) for the the same instances. Things like exception catching, pickling (and esp. unpickling), security checks based on classes, interface adapters and even simply isinstance() checks would then fail in various hard to reproduce ways. IMHO, we've so far done well by issuing new Python patch level releases whenever there was a problem in the stdlib (and only then). Introducing new features by way of updates is left to minor releases, which then require more testing by the user. This additional testing is what causes many corporates to not follow the Python release cycle or skip a few minor releases: the work involved often just doesn't warrant the advantages of the added new features. The situations won't get any better if we start releasing partial or complete stdlib updates even more often. If users really want bleeding edge, they can just use the SVN version of the stdlib or cherry pick updates to module or packages they care about from SVN. -- Marc-Andre Lemburg eGenix.com Professional Python Services directly from the Source (#1, Jun 02 2010)
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