alex23 writes:
On Aug 30, 2:20 pm, Matt Joiner
wrote: Why can't a special tag/section be added in PyPi to indicate that a module is being considered for inclusion in future versions of Python, after all, we're all friends here.
+1
There was talk of making the standard library standalone. I think having a similar metapackage for experimental modules would be a more elegant way of achieving this.
"Although practicality beats purity." As already mentioned several times in this thread, PyPI, Bitbucket, and hg.python.org sandboxes as-is provide a plenty good technical solution for distribution of experimental code which is almost certain to be included in the core distribution at some point, but currently the API bikeshed is being painted (well, it will be if we can only come to consensus on color!) The problem to be solved is on the other side of the network connection, internal to the *using organizations*. Some of them have much stricter rules for adding new "approved" packages than for upgrading existing ones. In that case, developers "inside" get much freer access to "official experimental" modules, and can participate in development (including objecting to API changes they consider gratuitous :-) in a way that is hard for them to justify if *before* dealing with any API changes they have to run an internal obstacle course just to be allowed to use the code. As I understand Guido's position, "experimental" is a non-starter unless it can be expected to significantly increase beta tests of such modules by developers inside organizations that strictly control their internal code libraries. This requires that the "experimental" modules be distributed with the interpreter. Of course, if the stdlib was separated out, and the current stdlib simply bundled with the interpreter at distribution time, the experimental package could be given the same treatment. But the stdlib hasn't been done yet, and I don't think something labelled "experimental" would have the same credibility with IT Security/QA as the rest of core Python. This last might kill the whole idea, as QA might take the position that "yes, you're just upgrading Python 2.7 from 2.7.4 to 2.7.5, but we have no idea what might be in experimental, so you're going to have to make a separate request for that." (I have never worked in such an organization so I don't know if that's a realistic worry or not.)