[Python-3000] Fwd: PEP 3108: Standard Library Reorganization

[Jim Jewett]

On 1/2/07, Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:

> As for the mass extinction being planned, I'm not so sure.  I have a
> vague unease about it.  For one thing I think that the str/unicode ->
> unicode/bytearray change will be disruptive enough that we may not
> fully understand what interfaces we really want until that happens.

That probably won't affect which legacy formats (gopher, aiff, etc) get used.

> I also have this feeling that by ditching so much that's widely used,
> we're setting Python 3.0 up for a lot of criticism that the batteries
> were removed.  For example, as icky as all those server modules are,
> they're darn handy and a lot of code has been written for them.

I think the server modules in particular were listed only for
consolidation, not removal.

> Maybe I'm totally off base here, but it seems like it's one thing to
> restructure the hierarchy, and pepify the names, but it's another to
> just remove code unless there are compelling enough alternatives that
> folks are willing to rewrite everything to use them.

There were several modules I didn't recognize.  (Some don't exist
under windows, but some do.)  I still remember printing off several
inches of stdlib documentation to figure out what was possible.

The only way to fix that is to reduce the number of (top-level) modules.

I'm not saying that the functionality should go away, but I am saying
that

    When I find/see a reference to an obviously relevant module,
    it should be the *right* answer.

At the moment, there are three sibling candidates for http servers
(plus the server cookielib, and possible direct usage of httplib and
urllib*...)

-jJ