[Python-Dev] New functionality in micro releases (was:Documenting branch policy)

[Phillip J. Eby]

At 04:13 PM 9/8/03 -0700, Guido van Rossum wrote:
>Right, but keep in mind that few people except hardcore Python users
>are going to upgrade their Python, no matter how painless, just to run
>some small piece of software they downloaded.  They'll just toss the
>download as one of so many broken things, proof that free software
>sucks.

I've even seen *developers* do this...  Somebody who works in my department 
here griped about PEAK not working on their machine and when I went to 
troubleshoot it, I found they had a lesser version (2.2.1) of Python than 
the docs explicitly required (2.2.2, which fixed a couple of relevant 
new-style class bugs).  (Makes me think I should put some code in to check 
the Python version and exit with a helpful error message.)

It does suggest that being able to specify the version of Python required 
by a script or module, would be a helpful idiom.  sys.requireversion(), 
perhaps?  Guess I should make a quick check to be sure you haven't already 
used the time machine and put this in...  :)

Of course, the sad bit is that even if there were a sys.requireversion(), 
it wouldn't be in the versions where it was actually needed: the older ones!