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

[Charles Hixson]

On Friday 18 July 2008 07:57:01 am Josiah Carlson wrote:
> 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
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>net

Were I to vote for "something" it would be a B+Tree in collections.  One that 
didn't impose a requirement that the key be a string (and not, e.g., an 
integer or a float).

OTOH, I don't care enough to build it.  (I've proven this to myself 
repeatedly, as I've started to create such a thing, and then kludged a 
different solution.)