[Python-Dev] [Python-3000] No beta2 tonight

[Josiah Carlson]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 7:21 AM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 10:43 PM, Brett Cannon <brett at python.org> wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 7:37 PM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 7:30 PM, Fred Drake <fdrake at acm.org> wrote:
>>>> On Jul 17, 2008, at 7:27 PM, Martin v. Löwis wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> bsddb is in a very bad shape, as the 2.6 code hasn't been merged into
>>>>> 3k. I somewhat doubt that this gets resolved before the release, so
>>>>> bsddb users might need to skip 3.0.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> In fact, bsddb as packages in core Python has rarely been in good shape.
>>>>
>>>> Has anyone actually considered that bsddb might do better if maintained
>>>> strictly as an external package?  That would make it easier for the any
>>>> maintainers to release updates, and removes a source of frustration for
>>>> users who either don't need it or would rather wait for a happier version.
>>>>
>>>> I think this is worth considering.  I vaguely recall that the bsddb module
>>>> was maintained before it was incorporated into the core Python release.
>>>
>>> +1. In my recollection maintaining bsddb has been nothing but trouble
>>> right from the start when we were all sitting together at "Zope Corp
>>> North" in a rented office in McLean... We can remove it from 3.0. We
>>> can't really remove it from 2.6, but we can certainly start
>>> end-of-lifing it in 2.6.
>
>> Unless I hear otherwise, I will add it to PEP 3108.
>
> Please do!

Invariably, when someone goes and removes a module, someone else is
going to complain, "but I used feature X, not having feature X will
break my code."  We, as maintainers can then say, "if you cared,
maintain it."  But I'm not sure that is the greatest thing to tell
people.  I suspect that we may have to include some sort of
"work-alike" for 2.7 and if not 3.0, 3.1 .  If I were to vote for a
work-alike, it would be based on sqlite.  For one of the most common
use-cases (bsddb.btree), simple sqlite code can be written to do the
right thing.  Recno is a little more tricky, but can also be done.
The bsddb hash may not be possible, because sqlite doesn't support
hashed indices :/.

Just an idea.

 - Josiah