[Python-Dev] deprecating string module?

[Steven Lott]

I think the "nearly unanimous" is a bit overstated.
Some people like the older C-style free functions, but I think
this is just old habits fighting on until the bitter end.

My (perhaps wacko) preference is to carefully segregate 
Strings and CharacterSets.

After all, iswhitespace() maps a fact about a character set
to a specific string instance.

I think that the classic ASCII, the various ISO 8859 variants,
and the Unicode character sets should
be objectified and their attributes include strings of 
whitespace, uppercase, lowercase, etc., etc.
 
--- David Abrahams <david.abrahams@rcn.com> wrote:
> From: "Guido van Rossum" <guido@python.org>
> 
> 
> > > > These "use cases"
> > > > don't convince me that there's a legitimate use case for
> > > > string.letters etc. that the methods don't cover.
> > >
> > > This is funny. In the C++ community there's a nearly
> unanimous
> > > consensus that way too much of the functionality of the
> standard
> > > strings is expressed as member functions.
> >
> > Interesting.  Python used to have the same attitude, hence
> the string
> > module -- but the existence of multiple string types made
> methods more
> > attractive.
> >
> > What's the alternative proposed for C++?
> 
> Free functions at namespace scope. The analogy would be
> module-level
> functions in Python. C++ also has multiple string types, but
> the
> availability of overloading makes this approach practical (is
> it time for
> Python multimethods yet?)
> 
> If I were to make arguments against string member functions in
> Python I'd
> be talking about the degree of coupling between algorithms and
> data
> structures, how it interferes with genericity, and the
> difficulty that
> users will have in making "string-like" types...
> 
> but-i-would-never-make-such-silly-arguments-ly y'rs,
> dave
> 
> 
> 
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=====
--
S. Lott, CCP :-{)
S_LOTT@YAHOO.COM
http://www.mindspring.com/~slott1
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