[Python-Dev] Single- vs. Multi-pass iterability

[Guido van Rossum]

> At the risk of sounding like a broken record -- doesn't protocol
> adaptation stand out as a good way to package up such a "standard
> tool"?  Why should we keep inventing a variety of different ways to
> ask the same kind of service -- "Here is an object X, please return
> it or a wrapper on it in such a way that it satisfies protocol Y, if
> possible"...?

Protocol adaptation sounds like a great reason to be very conservative
in inventing other ways to address such problems.

I don't see protocol adaptation go into Python 2.3.  As Tim channeled
me just after I went on vacation, it's such a tremendous change in how
users will view things that we need to be conservative in introducing
it.

I would encourage experimenting with protocol adaptation though.
Maybe the next steps would be to (a) revise the PEP and (b) produce a
more usable reference implementation as a 3rd party package?

I think Alex is in a great position to become co-author of PEP 246.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)