[Python-Dev] Fw: Behavior of buffer()

[Tim Peters]

{Guido, to Scott Gilbert]
> It seems we're still in the same boat.  It would be saner to change
> buffer slices to return buffer objects, except for backward
> compatibility.  I was hoping to hear from someone who uses buffer
> objects and knows that this would break his code.

Raymond did a survey on c.l.py, asking anyone who used buffer objects at
*all* to speak up.  IIRC, he got no replies.  On Python-Dev, apart from
musing whether they might conceivably use them, the only person who
eventually said they actually used them was Marc-Andre.  Fredrik pressed for
details, but we haven't seen any concrete use cases.  In the absence of the
latter, it's impossible to guess what would be backward compatible for MAL's
purposes.

> ...
> Maybe we should do something stronger, and deprecate the buffer type
> altogether.

I told everyone you forgot the essay you wrote suggesting this the last time
this rose above everyone's pain threshold.  It's a comfort to know that my
channeling powers have not diminished with exponentially advancing age
<wink>:

     http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2000-October/009974.html