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

[Guido van Rossum]

> [Guido]
> > Depends on how you fix these.  Fixing the code may break more code
> > than fixing the docs (assuming the mismatch existed for a long time)!

[Steve]
> Such as the socket mismatch that was fixed in (IIRC) 1.6, to loud
> complaints from half the network programming world? This still bites
> occasionally when old cord has to be brought forward to more recent
> versions (though, of course, it isn't hard to make the necessary
> changes).

That was not a micro release.  I'm glad we fixed that one then; now it
would be a much bigger disaster.  (And it was not a matter of
adjusting to the docs, but adjusting to the fact that not all socets
deal with host/port pairs.)

> [...]

> Yup. Any potential for code breakage is going to cause somebody
> somewhere a certain amount of pain. It's these edge cases that cause
> most of the problems, since overall the version-to-version compatibility
> picture is actually remarkably good. But people will cheerfully ignore
> the 99.99% of their code that *doesn't* break, and bitch about the
> little bits that do :-)

For people with a large code base and real customers, the only working
approach is long, careful testing with each new Python release.  Hence
the call for Python-in-a-tie.  (Though I haven't heard much about that
recently -- I've even heard a call to upgrade the tie to 2.3.)

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)