[Python-Dev] strop vs. string

[Tim Peters]

[Tim]
>> because all the people who know about them don't advertise it
>> because it's an easy way to provoke core dumps now.

[Greg Stein]
> Easy? Depends on what you use them with.

"Easy" and "depends" both, sure.  I don't understand the argument:  core
dumps are always presumed to be errors in the Python implementation, not the
users's fault.  In this case, they are Python's fault by any accounting.  On
rare occasions we just give up and say "sorry, but we simply don't know a
reasonable way fix it -- but it's still Python's fault" (for example, see
the dict thread this weekend).

>> I haven't asked for new features, just that what's already there get
>> fixed:  Python-level buffer objects are unsafe

> I'll fix the code.

Thank you!

>> the docs remain incomplete, there's random stuff like file.readinto()
>> that's not documented at all (could be that's the only one -- it's
>> certainly "discovered" on c.l.py often enough, though),

> Find another goat to screw for that one. I don't know anything about it.
>
> Hmm... Using the "annotate" feature of ViewCVS, I see that Guido
> added it.  Go blame him if you want to scream about that function and
> its lack of doc.

I don't care who added it:  I haven't asked anyone specific to do anything.
I've been asking whether *anyone* cares enough to address the backlog of
buffer maintenance work.  I don't even know who dreamed up the buffer
object -- although at this point I bet I can guess <wink>.

>> and there are no buffer tests in the std test suite.  The work to
>> introduce the type wasn't completed, nobody works on it, and
>> finishing work 3 years late doesn't count as "new feature" in my book

> Now you're just being bothersome.

You bet.  It's the same list of things I gave in my first msg; nobody
volunteered to do any work then, so I repeated them.

> You want all that stuff, then feel free.

"All that stuff" is the minimum now required of new features.  Buffers got
in before Guido got tougher about this stuff, but if they're worth having at
all then surely they're worth bringing up to current standards.

> I'll volunteer to do the code. You can go beat some heads, or find other
> volunteers.

Anyone else care to chip in?

> I'll do the code fixing just to placate you, and to get all this ranting
> about the buffer object to quiet down, but not because I'm joyful
> to do it.

OK, I feel guitly -- but if that's enough to make you feel joyful again, the
psychology here is just sick <wink>.