[Python-Dev] PEP 3147

[Antoine Pitrou]

Hello,

I'm sorry to chime in a bit late about an aspect of the PEP, but I only wondered
about it while reviewing your code :-)

« Instead, this PEP proposes to add a mapping between internal magic numbers 
and a user-friendly tag. Newer versions of Python can add to this mapping so 
that all later Pythons know the mapping between tags and magic numbers. »

The question is: why do we have to keep a mapping of past tags and magic
numbers? Don't we only care about our current tag and magic number?
(similarly, we don't know, and need to know, about Jython's or Pypy's stuff...).

As far as I can tell, it would remove the burden of maintening an ever-growing
registry of past magic numbers and tags.

Regards

Antoine.