[Python-Dev] IO implementation: in C and Python?

[Steven D'Aprano]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 8:38 PM, Brett Cannon <brett at python.org> wrote:
>> On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 19:41, Benjamin Peterson <benjamin at python.org>
>> wrote:
>>> As we prepare to merge the io-c branch, the question has come up [1]
>>> about the original Python implementation. Should it just be deleted in
>>> favor C version? The wish to maintain the two implementations together
>>> has been raised on the basis that Python is easier to experiment on
>>> and read (for other vm implementors).
>> Probably not a surprise, but +1 from me for keeping the pure Python version
>> around for the benefit of other VMs as well as a reference implementation.
> 
> You have been practice channeling me again, haven't you? I like the
> idea of having two (closely matching) implementations very much. In
> 2.x we did this on an ad-hoc basis, e.g. [c]StringIO, pickle/cPickle,
> heapq/_heapq. In 3.0 we've moved towards standardizing the approach --
> the foo.py file first defines everything and then tries to import *
> from _foo on top of that.


Currently, if I want to verify that (say) cFoo and Foo do the same 
thing, or compare their speed, it's easy because I can import the 
modules separately. Given the 3.0 approach, how would one access the 
Python versions without black magic or hacks?



-- 
Steven