[Python-Dev] Deprecating obsolete builtins

Greg Ewing greg at cosc.canterbury.ac.nz
Mon Nov 10 23:01:51 EST 2003


Neal Norwitz <neal at metaslash.com>:

> For the most part, I meant to remove them (including intern)
> altogether in the long run.  In 2.4, I only meant to officially
> deprecate them with a warning.  intern() doesn't seem particularly
> useful or commonly used.

If the implementation of string comparison is somehow changed so that
explicit interning is no longer necessary for efficient lookup of
dynamically-constructed names, then intern() can go.

But until then, the functionality needs to be available somehow -- you
might not need it often, but when you do, there's no substitute for
it.

Greg Ewing, Computer Science Dept, +--------------------------------------+
University of Canterbury,	   | A citizen of NewZealandCorp, a	  |
Christchurch, New Zealand	   | wholly-owned subsidiary of USA Inc.  |
greg at cosc.canterbury.ac.nz	   +--------------------------------------+



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