[Python-Dev] instancemethod_getattro seems to be partially wrong

[Tim Peters]

[Christian]
>> Several people asked on the main list, how to pickle deeply
>> nested structures without crashing pickle. Well, my general
>> answer was to rewrite pickle in a non-recursive manner.

[Guido]
> I guess it's my anti-Scheme attitude.  I just think the problem is in
> the deeply nested structures.  There usually is a less nested data
> structure that doesn't have the problem.  But I'll shut up, because
> this rant is not productive. :-(

Ya, but it *used* to be -- in the early days, many people learned a lot
about writing better programs by avoiding constructs Python penalized
(nested functions, cyclic references, deep recursion, very long reference
chains, massively incestuous multiple inheritance).  Learning to design with
flatter data structures and flatter code was highly educational, and
rewarding, at least for those who played along.

I suppose that's gone for good now.  An irony specific to pickle is that
cPickle coding was driven mostly by Zope's needs, and multi-gigabyte Zope
databases live happily with its recursive design -- most data ends up in
BTrees, and those hardly ever go deeper than 3 levels.  I don't think it's
coincidence that, needing to find a scalable container type with demanding
size and speed constraints, Jim ended up with a "shallow" BTree design.  The
lack of need for deep C recursion was then a consequence of needing to avoid
(for search speed) long paths from root to data.

Oh well.  The next generation will learn the hard way <wink>.

looking-forward-to-death-ly y'rs  - tim