[Python-Dev] Should we move to replace re with regex?

[Dan Stromberg]

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 8:47 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info>wrote:

> Antoine Pitrou wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:25:56 -0700
>> Dan Stromberg <drsalists at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
> If you add regex as "import regex", and the new regex module doesn't work
>
>> out, regex might be harder to get rid of.  from __future__ import is an
>>> established way of trying something for a while to see if it's going to
>>> work.
>>>
>>
>> That's an interesting idea. This way, integrating the new module would
>> be a less risky move, since if it gives us too many problems, we could
>> back out our decision in the next feature release.
>>
>
> I'm not sure that's correct. If there are differences in either the
> interface or the behaviour between the new regex and re, then reverting will
> be a pain regardless of whether you have:
>
> from __future__ import re
> re.compile(...)
>
> or
>
> import regex
> regex.compile(...)
>
>
> Either way, if the new regex library goes away, code will break, and fixing
> it may not be easy.


You're talking technically, which is important, but wasn't what I was
suggesting would be helped.

Politically, and from a marketing standpoint, it's easier to withdraw a
feature you've given with a "Play with this, see if it works for you"
warning.

Have then been any __future__ features that were added provisionally?
>

I can't either, but ISTR hearing that from __future__ import was started
with such an intent.  Irrespective, it's hard to import something from
"future" without at least suspecting that you're on the bleeding edge.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/attachments/20110826/b49ab872/attachment-0001.html>