[Python-Dev] PEP 469: Restoring the iterkeys/values/items() methods

[Terry Reedy]

On 4/18/2014 10:31 PM, Nick Coghlan wrote:
> After spending some time talking to the folks at the PyCon Twisted
> sprints, they persuaded me that adding back the iterkeys/values/items
> methods for mapping objects would be a nice way to eliminate a key
> porting hassle for them (and likely others), without significantly
> increasing the complexity of Python 3.

I hate this idea. It strikes me as junking up Python3 with stuff it is 
well rid of. I think anything that can be left to the transition modules 
should be. The u'' syntax had to be in the language itself. This does 
not have to be.

> I personally put this one in the same category as PEP 414 -

When I suggested that PEP 414 might be seen as a precedent for restoring 
more of Py2, I was trashed for saying so. "No, no, u'' is a unique case. 
[it is] This will be the last proposal like this." What will come next?

 > not
> particularly useful from a Python 3 perspective, but not really
> harmful either,

It makes the language a bit harder to learn and remember and slightly 
more confusing.

It will not help inter-operating with Python before 3.5, at the earliest 
and cannot be backported. Most things in an independent module can be 
used with any 3.x.

I would have preferred that you started by presenting the problem on 
python-ideas with possible solutions, rather than as a finished PEP 
pushing my least favorite solution.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy