[Python-3000] PEP 3137 plan of attack

[Terry Reedy]

"Guido van Rossum" <guido at python.org> wrote in message 
news:ca471dc20710150749y70ba12cfmadf1c59974c61926 at mail.gmail.com...
| > > > As I work on these..  Should the mutable PyBytes_ (buffer) objects 
implement
| > > > the following methods inplace and return an additional reference to 
self?
| >
| > > > .capitalize(), .center(), .expandtabs(), .rjust(), .swapcase(), 
.title(),
| > > > .upper(), .zfill()
| >
| > > No... That would be a huge trap to fall in at all sorts of occasions.

At this point, I though your objection was to returning the buffer instead 
of None, as with list mutations, and for the same reason.  But admittedly, 
some people do not like this feature of lists.

| > So would returning a different object.  I expect a mutation operation
| > on an explicitly mutable object to mutate the object, instead of
| > creating something new.

So was I.

| Since these methods with these very names already exist for strings
| and return new values there, I don't see the gotcha unless you never
| use strings.

The real question is what is more useful?  I would think that being able to 
edit in place would be a reason to use a buffer rather than (immutable) 
bytes.

tjr