[Python-Dev] Function in os module for available disk space, why not?

[Thomas Wouters]

On Mon, Mar 19, 2001 at 01:58:48PM +0100, Dinu Gherman wrote:

> All I can say is that I'm writing an app that I want to be 
> cross-platform and that Python does not allow it to be just 
> that, while Google gives you 17400 hits if you look for 
> "python cross-platform". Now, this is also some kind of 
> *truth* if only one of a mismatch between reality and wish-
> ful thinking...

I'm sure I agree, but I don't see the value in dropping everything to write
a function so Python can be that much more cross-platform. (That's just me,
though.) Python wouldn't *be* as cross-platform as it is now if not for a
group of people who weren't satisfied with it, and improved on it. And a lot
of those people were not Guido or even of the current PythonLabs team.

I've never really believed in the 'true cross-platform nature' of Python,
mostly because I know it can't *really* be true. Most of my scripts are not
portably to non-UNIX platforms, due to the use of sockets, pipes, and
hardcoded filepaths (/usr/...). Even if I did, I can hardly agree that
because there is no portable way (if any at all) to find out howmany
diskspace is free, it isn't cross-platform. Just *because* it lacks that
function makes it more cross-platform: platforms might not have the concept
of 'free space' :)

-- 
Thomas Wouters <thomas@xs4all.net>

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