[Python-Dev] python-dev summary, 2001-02-15 - 2001-03-01

[Michael Hudson]

Thanks for all the positive feedback for the last summary!

 This is a summary of traffic on the python-dev mailing list between
 Feb 15 and Feb 28 (inclusive) 2001.  It is intended to inform the
 wider Python community of ongoing developments.  To comment, just
 post to python-list@python.org or comp.lang.python in the usual
 way. Give your posting a meaningful subject line, and if it's about a
 PEP, include the PEP number (e.g. Subject: PEP 201 - Lockstep
 iteration) All python-dev members are interested in seeing ideas
 discussed by the community, so don't hesitate to take a stance on a
 PEP if you have an opinion.

 This is the second python-dev summary written by Michael Hudson.
 Previous summaries were written by Andrew Kuchling and can be found
 at:

   <http://www.amk.ca/python/dev/>

 New summaries will appear at:

  <http://starship.python.net/crew/mwh/summaries/>

 and will continue to be archived at Andrew's site.

   Posting distribution (with apologies to mbm)

   Number of articles in summary: 400

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     0 +-033-037-002-008-006-021-071-037-051-012-002-021-054-045
        Thu 15| Sat 17| Mon 19| Wed 21| Fri 23| Sun 25| Tue 27|
            Fri 16  Sun 18  Tue 20  Thu 22  Sat 24  Mon 26  Wed 28

 A slightly quieter week on python-dev.  As you can see, most Python
 developers are too well-adjusted to post much on weekends.  Or
 Mondays.

 There was a lot of traffic on the bugs, patches and checkins lists in
 preparation for the upcoming 2.1b1 release.


    * backwards incompatibility *

 Most of the posts in the large spike in the middle of the posting
 distribution were on the subject of backward compatibility.  On of
 the unexpected (by those of us that hadn't thought too hard about it)
 consequences of nested scopes was that some code using the dreaded
 "from-module-import-*" code inside functions became ambiguous, and
 the plan was to ban such code in Python 2.1.  This provoked a storm
 of protest from many quarters, including python-dev and
 comp.lang.python.  If you really want to read all of this, start
 here:

  <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-February/013003.html>

 However, as you will know if you read comp.lang.python, PythonLabs
 took note, and in:

  <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-February/013125.html>
 
 Guido announced that the new nested scopes behaviour would be opt-in
 in 2.1, but code that will break in python 2.2 when nested scopes
 become the default will produce a warning in 2.1.  To get the new
 behaviour in a module, one will need to put

    from __future__ import nested_scopes

 at the top of the module.  It is possible this gimmick will be used
 to introduce further backwards compatible features in the future.


    * obmalloc *

 After some more discussion, including Neil Schemenauer pointing out
 that obmalloc might enable him to make the cycle GC faster, obmalloc
 was finally checked in.

 There's a second patch from Vladimir Marangoz implementing a memory
 profiler.  (sorry for the long line)

  <http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=401229&group_id=5470&atid=305470>

 Opinion was muted about this; as Neil summed up in:

  <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-February/013205.html>

 noone cares enough to put the time into it and review this patch.
 Sufficiently violently wielded opnions may swing the day...


    * pydoc *

 Ka-Ping Yee checked in his amazing pydoc.  pydoc was described in

  <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-January/011538.html>

 It gives command line and web browser access to Python's
 documentation, and will be installed as a separate script in 2.1.


    * other stuff *

 It is believed that the case-sensitive import issues mentioned in the
 last summary have been sorted out, although it will be hard to be
 sure until the beta.

 The unit-test discussion petered out.  Nothing has been checked in
 yet.

 The iteraators discussion seems to have disappeared.  At least, your
 author can't find it!

Cheers,
M.