[Python-Dev] public visibility of python-dev decisions "before it's too late"

["Martin v. Löwis"]

 > In fact, since the deprecation in the Python 2 line happened in 2.7,
 > the deprecation period of this API in practice was between July 3rd
 > 2010 and February 20 2011. That is a deprecation period of somewhat
 > longer than seven months. Nobody obviously though 2.6 was out of
 > practical use by now, so why did you decide to remove one if it's
 > API's?

Python 2.6's API wasn't removed in 2.7. It remains available.

If you go from 2.7 to 3.2, you should expect things to break. That's
why the major version changed.

For 3.x, as Reid points out, the API was deprecated in 3.1, so the
deprecation period was rather 19 months, not 7.

 > Let's make no bones about this: The PyCObject API should *not* have
 > been removed in 3.2. In fact, the removal should be reversed, and
 > 3.2.1 should be released ASAP, making 3.2 a moot and unsupported
 > version.

This change conforms to PEP 5:

"There must be at least a one-year transition period between the
release of the transitional version of Python and the release
of the backwards incompatible version.  Users will have at
least a year to test their programs and migrate them from use
of the deprecated construct to the alternative one."

If you think a year is too little, you should lobby for a PEP 5
change.

Regards,
Martin