[Python-Dev] New winreg module really an improvement?

Paul Prescod paul@prescod.net
Tue, 01 Aug 2000 02:34:53 -0400


Mark Hammond wrote:
> 
> >   Interesting; I'd understood from Paul that you'd given approval to
> > this module.
> 
> Actually, it was more more along the lines of me promising to spend some
> time "over the next few days", and not getting to it.  However, I believe
> it was less than a week before it was just checked in.

It was checked in the day before the alpha was supposed to go out. I
thought that was what you wanted! On what schedule would you have
preferred us to do it?

> I fear this may be a general symptom of the new flurry of activity; no-one
> with a real job can keep up with this list, meaning valuable feedback on
> many proposals is getting lost.  For example, DigiCool have some obviously
> smart people, but they are clearly too busy to offer feedback on anything
> lately.  That is a real shame, and a good resource we are missing out on.

>From my point of view, it was the appearance of _winreg that prompted
the "flurry of activity" that led to winreg. I would never have bothered
with winreg if I were not responding to the upcoming "event" of the
defacto standardization of _winreg. It was clearly designed (and I use
the word loosely) by various people at Microsoft over several years --
with sundry backwards and forwards compatibility hacks embedded.

I'm all for slow and steady, deliberate design. I'm sorry _winreg was
rushed but I could only work with the time I had and the interest level
of the people around. Nobody else wanted to discuss it. Nobody wanted to
review the module. Hardly anyone here even knew what was in the OLD
module.

> I am quite interested to hear from people like Gordon and Bill
> about their thoughts.

I am too. I would *also* be interested in hearing from people who have
not spent the last five years with the Microsoft API because _winreg was
a very thin wrapper over it and so will be obvious to those who already
know it.

I have the feeling that an abstraction over the APIs would never be as
"comfortable" as the Microsoft API you've been using for all of these
years.
-- 
 Paul Prescod - Not encumbered by corporate consensus
"I don't want you to describe to me -- not ever -- what you were doing
to that poor boy to make him sound like that; but if you ever do it
again, please cover his mouth with your hand," Grandmother said.
	-- John Irving, "A Prayer for Owen Meany"