[Distutils] Alternate static metadata PEP submission...

[Kevin Teague]

On Oct 14, 2009, at 3:39 PM, Fred Drake wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 5:59 PM, David Lyon  
> <david.lyon at preisshare.net> wrote:
>> ConfigParser is in every python version that I know of.
>
> ConfigParser was first documented in Python 1.5.2, released 30 April  
> 1999.
>
> Some of us remember the releases that came before, but (thankfully)
> we're outnumbered.  :-)

1.5.1 was the first Python that I used, seems like I managed to squeak  
onto the outnumbered side.

The Python Tutorial was really primitive back then (http://www.python.org/doc/1.5.1/tut/ 
), it didn't even get it's distinctive blue headers and footers until  
1.5.2 (so that it at least a little bit no longer felt like "some  
dudes pet project"). I like section 9.4, "Randon Remarks" (http://www.python.org/doc/1.5.1/tut/remarks.html 
):

"Data attributes override method attributes with the same name; to  
avoid accidental name conflicts, which may cause hard-to-find bugs in  
large programs, it is wise to use some kind of convention that  
minimizes the chance of conflicts, e.g., capitalize method names,  
prefix data attribute names with a small unique string (perhaps just  
an underscore), or use verbs for methods and nouns for data attributes."

The use of a leading underscore for private names hadn't yet been  
formalized as a convention!

:)