[Python-Dev] Re: Alleged deprecation of shutils

[Michael Hudson]

Guido van Rossum <guido@digicool.com> writes:

> > > All current filemanagers on Linux (KDE kfm, Gnome gmc) are flawed 
> > > in this respect.
> > 
> > I don't think you can call that a "flaw", given that these
> > filemanagers are only designed to deal with Unix file systems.
> > 
> > I think it's reasonable to only expect things in the platform
> > os module to deal with the platform's native file system.
> > Trying to anticipate how every platform's cross-platform
> > file servers for all other platforms are going to store their
> > data just isn't practical.
> 
> You say that now, but as such cross-system servers become more common,
> we should expect the tools to deal with them well, rather than
> complain "the other guy doesn't play by our rules".

So, a goal for 2.2: getting moving/copying/deleting of files and
directories working properly (ie. using native APIs) on all major
supported platforms, with all the legwork that implies.  We're not
really very far from this now, are we?  Perhaps (the functionality of)
shutil.{rmtree,copy,copytree} should move into os and if necessary be
implemented in nt or dos or mac or whatever.  Any others?

Cheers,
M.

-- 
39. Re graphics:  A picture is worth 10K  words - but only those
    to describe the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be
    adequately described with pictures.
  -- Alan Perlis, http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/perlis-alan/quotes.html