[Python-Dev] Rework nntlib?

[Brett Cannon]

I'm +1 for Antoine to go ahead and do what he wants; the module is
busted as-is and I trust him to make a good judgement call. But I
wanted to specifically reply to Skip about removal.

On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 09:43,  <skip at pobox.com> wrote:
>
>    Baptiste> Reading this from GMANE ;-)
>
> I use GMANE too on occasion, but only via the web, as I suppose most people
> do.  I haven't actually used an NNTP-based app like xrn or gnus in probably
> two decades.  Do the GMANE folks publish HTTP v. NNTP statistics for their
> service?
>
> I question if the nntplib module is used enough to warrant inclusion with
> the rest of the batteries.  Not to mention dedication of scarce people
> resources.  Even though Antoine has kindly volunteered to make the necessary
> changes, I seem to recall that the email package transition took awhile to
> get right (and already had a reasonable test suite I suspect).  There are
> probably more critical parts of Python he could work on instead (though
> who's to dispute that Antoine has an NNTP itch?)  Finally, is there an
> application out in the wild using nntplib which is desirous of better NNTP
> support than Python currently has?

Because it is Antoine and not some random person offering to clean
this up I see no need to remove the module. For other modules that
turn out to be severely str/bytes broken at this point and does not
have a proven core developer to maintain it, then I would agree that
removing the module, creating a Mercurial repository for the module,
and then having a wiki page listing forks of the code so people can
find it more maintained would make sense. But I don't think this is
such a case.

As an aside, I also think that having the module in pure Python makes
it also an easier argument to keep around. If this was an extension
module I probably would be more for removing it (e.g., avoiding
security issues like we have had with audioop, etc.).

>
> We got rid of gopherlib a few years ago (deprecated in 2.5, presumably gone
> in 2.6).  I suspect the NNTP protocol has a greatly diminished user base as
> well, GMANE's presence notwithstanding.

gopherlib was dropped thanks to lack of developer interest. In this
case we have interest so that comparison is not 1:1.