[Python-Dev] Re: Stability and change

[Gordon McMillan]

On 7 Apr 2002 at 10:20, Guido van Rossum wrote:

> [Gordon]
> > I keep a fairly large body of code working with
> > 1.5.2 onwards. 

[Guido]
> Interesting.  Two questions.
> 
> (1) Got any details on which changes caused the most
> pain?

Tightening up functions which allowed
two params where a tuple was correct.
The changes to ConfigParser bit me hard;
I think a couple other std lib changes got
me, too.

In many cases my 1.5.2 code ended up
better, so the urge to whine is over 
pretty quickly.

In a broader sense, Unicode is by far
the most disruptive change. My excuses
for ignoring the damn stuff are disappearing.
 
> (2) Was the pain worth it, or would you prefer we'd
> spent more time on
>     being more backwards compatible?

I don't have more than a muted grumble 
about backwards compatibility. Where I end
up with checking the version, it's to make use
of a new feature, not keep old code working.
 
Recompiling all those extensions is the
biggest pain.

> > (FWIW, the hardest post 1.5.2 feature for me
> > to do without is augmented assignment.)
> 
> Since you're also a C programmer (I believe), I'm
> not surprised. 

Well, the other side of that coin is that I'm
still only +0 on list comprehensions and -0 on
lexical scoping :-).

-- Gordon
http://www.mcmillan-inc.com/