[Python-3000] Is pickle's persistent_id worth keeping?

[Paul Moore]

On 07/01/2008, Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:
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> On Jan 6, 2008, at 1:35 PM, Jim Fulton wrote:
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> > Really, I'd like to see a much smaller standard library.  IMO, pickle
> > isn't essential enough to be part of the standard library and I'd be
> > happy to see pickle become a separate project. I'd prefer to see most
> > of the Python 2 standard library become separate projects.
>
> I still think this idea has merit, if only because some packages
> simply have a different lifecycle than the core language.  There are
> advantages and disadvantages to packaging with the core.

This has come up before, and I'm still against it. The reality is that
at least in some environments (notably big corporate setups, in my
experience), there's a lot of resistance to getting *any* additional
software installed on boxes. Getting agreement to install "python" can
be a real struggle, and it's incredibly important in that type of
situation that Python *is* "batteries included". Getting agreement to
install Python, and then finding I can't use our standard backup
script without another struggle because it needs datetime, is not
something I want to see. (That was a sort of real example, translated
from Perl - the system had Perl, but Perl's basic time handling is
patchy, and the script needed a better time module from CPAN).

If there were two officially distributed versions of Python,
python-std (basically what we have now) and a python-lite without the
full stdlib, then I could probably live with the situation (but the
big version needs to be flagged as "standard", or the sysadmins will
insist on the other one...) But I'd still prefer the current
situation.

BTW, I'm only really concerned with Windows installers here. The
situation on Unix tends not to be as bad for us (but mainly because
the standard tools are good enough that we get by with them so the
lack of Python isn't worth fighting over :-().

And yes, my experience really has been that bad :-(

Paul.