[core-workflow] Standard library separation from core (was Re: My initial thoughts on the steps/blockers of the transition)

[Nick Coghlan]

On 5 January 2016 at 12:50, Nicholas Chammas <nicholas.chammas at gmail.com> wrote:
> Something else to consider. We’ve long talked about splitting out the stdlib
> to make it easier for the alternative implementations to import. If some or
> all of them also switch to git, we could do that pretty easily with git
> submodules.
>
> Not to derail here, but wasn’t there a discussion (perhaps on python-ideas)
> about slowly moving to a model where we distribute a barebones Python
> “core”, allowing the standard modules to be updated and released on a more
> frequent cycle? Would this be one small step towards such a model?

That discussion has been going on for years :)

The most extensive elaboration is in the related PEPs:

PEP 407 considered the idea of distinguishing normal releases and LTS
releases: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0407/
PEP 413 considered decoupling standard library versions from language
versions: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0413/

The ripple effect of either proposal on the wider community would have
been huge though, hence why 407 is Deferred and 413 Withdrawn.

Instead, the main step which has been taken (driven in no small part
by the Python 3 transition) is the creation of PyPI counterparts for
modules that see substantial updates that are backwards compatible
with earlier versions (importlib2, for example, lets you use the
Python 3 import system in Python 2). Shipping pip by default with the
interpreter runtime is also pushing people more towards the notion
that "if you're limiting yourself to the standard library, you're
experiencing only a fraction of what the Python ecosystem has to offer
you".

We don't currently do a great job of making those libraries
*discoverable* by end users, but they're available if you know to look
for them (there's an incomplete list at
https://wiki.python.org/moin/Python2orPython3#Supporting_Python_2_and_Python_3_in_a_common_code_base
)

pip's inclusion was also the first instance of CPython shipping a
*bundled* library that isn't maintained through the CPython
development process - each new maintenance release of CPython ships
the latest upstream version of pip, rather than being locked to the
version of pip that shipped with the corresponding x.y.0 release.

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia