[Python-Dev] Python 1.6 timing (fwd)

[gvwilson@nevex.com]

Guido> There are several other things I can think of now that were
Guido> planned for 1.6: revamped import, rich comparisons, revised
Guido> coercions, parallel for loop (for i in L; j in M: ...),
Guido> extended slicing for all sequences.  I've also been thinking
Guido> about making classes be types (not as huge a change as you
Guido> think, if you don't allow subclassing built-in types), and
Guido> adding a built-in array type suitable for use by NumPy.  I've
Guido> also received a conservative GC patch that seems to be fairly
Guido> easy to apply and has some of Tim Peters' blessing.

BAW> All very cool things that could easily wait until 1.7.  After
BAW> all, what's in a number?

GVW writes:

I agree on all counts except garbage collection --- I'm half-way through
the second day of the Python class I teach at Los Alamos (the people who
are funding the Python tool design competition), and it's come up a couple
of times.  People want to be able to prototype meshes, throw callbacks
around without worrying about circularity, and some other things that I
don't really understand yet.  There's also a couple of smart guys in the
class who are wondering about CPython vs. JPython ("So this'll be safe in
one version of the language, but not in the other?"), and about marketing
("Help me win a feature comparison against Java in my group...").

There's also been questions about tighter integration of NumPy (e.g.
overloading operators rather than calling 'greater()' to do comparison),
but I think that's a separate discussion...

My $0.02,
Greg