[Python-Dev] Toward Python's future article

[Raymond Hettinger]

> Hi i am sure most of you have read the article of Andrew Kuchling
about
> focusing
> more in the standart library than language newFeatures/tweaking and
> probably i
> as many others would like to know what the python hackers/developers
think
> about
> this proposal.

There is a great deal of merit to efforts for cataloging resources and
thinking about ways to improve the standard library.  Whether successful
or not likely depends on who wants to volunteer their time for what.

Where there are multiple, competing third party solutions, Guido has
historically resisted ending exploration by locking in a single
solution.  Instead, he said he prefers "category killers" such as the
unittest and logging modules.  Martin has also been clear that community
acceptance and a commitment to on-going maintenance are also important
considerations. 

For the core, python-dev discussions indicate that several things are
still in the works and will probably happen depending on who has the
time, interest, and ability:

* Someday, decimal may become a built-in type.
* The AST version of the compiler may get finished.
* A mutable bytes type may emerge on the road to all strings being
Unicode.
* Someday, C99 may rule the roost and cmath will be updated.
* One of three proposals may be accepted for optimized attribute lookup.
* A bytecode verifier seems to have a chance.
* reST support may be added when it becomes mature enough.
* The project to transition to unittests and increase coverage is
continuing.
* If the class/instance semantics get worked out, exceptions may become
new style classes along the road to Py3.0.

FWIW, there is a trend toward providing pure python equivalents to
CPython implementations (such as that for compiler, sets, bisect, heapq,
deques, itertools, decimal, etc).  The thought is that these may outlive
their C counterparts.



> i am personaly very interested in improving the stdlib which is very
messy
> in my
> opinion right now.

It's not clear whether you're volunteering or just making a vague
blanket request/criticism.  If it is the former, then the backlog of bug
reports and patch reviews is a good place to start.


Raymond