[Python-Dev] Python language standard; LSB

[Tobias Burnus]

Hi,

On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Guido van Rossum wrote:
[Python Language Standard]
> Not really, and not that I'm aware of.  In practice, there's only one
> Python implementation that could be used here (Jython doesn't make
> sense in this context) so I'm not sure what a standardization effort
> would buy us.
Hmm, at least with PERL there are concerns that the different PERL version
have subtle differences. From the #lsb channel:
<chris> The problem we have here is the standardisation of perl
<chris> if we require perl on lsb systems, what does this really mean? Lots
        of versions out there with subtle incompatabilities

> It's not like there are lots of diverging Python distributions,
> like with Unix or the Linux kernel.
Well, even with things like the glibc, which exists only once and is in
principle the same, you might hit problems (e.g. with different forms of
threads) depending on the version.

> Standardizing on a version might make sense; I would recommend using the
> 2.2 line of releases, starting with 2.2.3 (the latest 2.2 release),
> until 2.3 is considered stable.
That was what chris ment (for Perl): While let's say Perl 5.6 and 5.8 are
similar, they are not identical for certain applications (especially
tainting and unicode). That is: One would like to know (e.g.) a subset
which is _guaranteed_ to work.

While Python is more stable than perl in this respect (at least I have
that expression) the problem is that there is no fixed python language:
With any new release not only bugs are fixed, but also new
language features are added. While this makes features-to-market faster,
it probably creates the problems that make it hard to "standardize"
python. This done when it is included in the LSB (kind of):
The programs have to behave _identical_ independend of the
python version.

> There is of course a thorough standard test suite for Python
Hmm. It should be somehow possible to get python (and perl) into the LSB,
hmm.

> Other than that, I expect that including Python in LSB is more a
> matter of political will in the LSB committee than anything else.
I'm not that sure, at least for LSB 2.0 which is supposed to be modulized
this might actually happen. (Though probably only if also Perl gets
included.)

Tobias