[Python-Dev] [Python-checkins] python/dist/src/Objectsabstract.c,2.93.6.7,2.93.6.8

[Raymond Hettinger]

> When Docutils reports errors, it sometimes uses the exception text returned
> by Python.  The test that broke is one of those; it tests for an expected
> exception.  I'm not questioning the validity of the change, just the
> backport.  I'm fine with the change in 2.3, but I question whether the
> changed behavior should have been back backported to 2.2.2.  I don't see the
> old text as a bug; the new text is improved, true, but that says
> "enhancement" to me, not "bugfix".  My post was a question that goes to
> backport policy.

This particular rewording of the exception text was done for an 
instructor who found that the existing message was routinely 
confusing his students using Python.

It must be a point of view thing.  I think that usability problems are a type
of bug.  We often backport clarifications to doc strings, error messages,
and the LaTex documentation.  Using the same logic, GvR approved my
backporting changes to IDLE which were throwing novice users into
coniptions (like having RunScript enabled on the interactive screen).

I think the idea behind the no enhancement rule is to only
backport things learned by experience from the previously 
published version so that Py2.2.x becomes increasingly
perfected.   A genuine new feature has an experimental
quality in that it would not have gotten exercised in the previously 
published version.