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

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Stephen Hansen schrieb:
> And it'd be so easy to do it in a way which wouldn't be silent... just 
> throw out a warning, and defer the actual change until the next release.

I disagree that it easy to do that. Implementation-wise, it probably is.
However, I feel that warnings have a *very* high cost, and cause more
harm than good. They primarily don't appear at the machine of the author
of the code. Instead, they appear at the end-user's machine, causing 
them problems in that they see messages from a software they didn't know
they are even running. They all have to chase down the source of the 
program, only to eventually have the author of the software to tell
them that it is safe to ignore this warning (which I believe it is).

I specifically got complaints that Python fills Apache log files with
garbage warnings. It won't help to issue the warning only once (although
that will help in other cases): you then get the warning once per HTTP
request (assuming CGI), which still can be a lot of warnings.

That said, if it makes people more comfortable with having a warning
added, I won't object. It's just that I don't want to be the one to
take the blame for issuing the warning, because deep in my heart I
feel that warnings are a bad thing, unless they are right most of the
time (which they won't be in this case).

> (And, if I thought it'd have any chance of going in, I'd submit a patch 
> to add a warning and adjust docs/tests/etc... but this issue seems ever 
> so divided...)

You need to find a committer to commit such a change, but otherwise,
I think it's a good idea. Contributing is always a good idea.

Martin