[Python-Dev] Proposal to revert r54204 (splitext change)

[Thomas Wouters]

On 3/14/07, Michael Foord <fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk> wrote:
>
> Phillip J. Eby wrote:
> > At 06:47 PM 3/14/2007 +0100, Martin v. Löwis wrote:
> >
> >> Phillip J. Eby schrieb:
> >>
> >>> This backwards-incompatible change is therefore contrary to policy and
> >>> should be reverted, pending a proper transition plan for the change
> >>> (such as introduction of an alternative API and deprecation of the
> >>> existing one.)
> >>>
> >> I'm clearly opposed to this proposal, or else I wouldn't have committed
> >> the change in the first place.
> >>
> >
> > That much is obvious.  But I haven't seen any explanation as to why
> > explicitly-documented and explicitly-tested behavior should be treated
> as a
> > bug in policy terms, just because people don't like the documented and
> > tested behavior.
> >
> >
> Because it's clearly a bug and has even been shown to fix bugs in
> current code ?
>
> Honestly it is this sort of pointless prevarication that gives
> python-dev a bad name.


However, changing documented, tested behaviour without warning gives Python
an even worse name. I agree with PJE that the change is the wrong thing to
do, simply because it sets (yet another) precedent. If providing an
alternate API with clearer semantics is too 'heavy-weight' a solution and
warning is for some reason unacceptable (I don't see why; all the arguments
against warning there go for *any* warning in Python) -- then the problem
isn't bad enough to fix it by breaking other code.

-- 
Thomas Wouters <thomas at python.org>

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