[Python-Dev] bsddb alternative (was Re: [issue3769] Deprecate bsddb for removal in 3.0)

[A.M. Kuchling]

On Thu, Sep 04, 2008 at 09:25:43AM -0700, Bill Janssen wrote:
> Yeah, but bsddb is one of those exploding batteries.  I've used it for
> years, and have had lots and lots of problems with it.  Having SQLite
> in there is great; now we need implementations of anydbm and shelve
> which use it.

What sort of problems?  When I've used BerkleyDB in the past, it
always took a fair bit of experimenting & searching to figure out the
right combination of flags to use (and the BerkeleyDB docs were very
low-level), but once that was done it seemed to work OK.
Incorporating Jesus's docs will help users with that issue; I'm
willing to work on that before 2.6final.

I think the primary annoyance is the instability of the bsddb tests,
and the resulting bad effect on buildbot's usefulness (as we all just
get accustomed to having a patchwork of red randomly mixed in).

So why not just strip down the test cases we run to avoid the
problematic tests?  That won't help Jesus debug on platforms he can't
access, but we could re-enable those tests after 2.7 or provide a
different buildbot target that runs the entire suite.

--amk