First Cut at CSV PEP

[Dave Cole]

>>>>> "Skip" == Skip Montanaro <skip at pobox.com> writes:

Kevin> I'm not real comfortable with the dialect idea, it doesn't seem
Kevin> to add any value over simply specifying a separator and
Kevin> delimiter.

Skip> I look at it as a simple way to specify a group of
Skip> characteristics specific to the way a vendor reads and writes
Skip> CSV files.  It frees the programmer from having to know all the
Skip> characteristics of their chosen vendor's file format.  Think of
Skip> it as the difference between Larry Wall's configure script for
Skip> Perl and the GNU configure script.  When I configure Perl I have
Skip> to know enough about my system to know the alignment boundary of
Skip> malloc, whether the system is big- or little-endian, etc, even
Skip> though I know damn well it can figure that stuff out reliably.
Skip> GNU configure almost never prompts you.  It reliably figures out
Skip> all the low-level stuff for you.

Yes, I agree.  Users of the module will probably want to be able to
handle files from specific applications without necessarily wanted to
go through the pain of learning the hard way about exactly how
dialects differ.  It is as Skip says, just like the autoconf stuff.

- Dave

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