[Python-Dev] Status of PEP 3145 - Asynchronous I/O for subprocess.popen

[Josiah Carlson]

On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 10:46 AM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 9:45 AM, Josiah Carlson <josiah.carlson at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>> If it makes you feel any better, I spent an hour this morning building a
>> 2-function API for Linux and Windows, both tested, not using ctypes, and
>> not even using any part of asyncio (the Windows bits are in msvcrt and
>> _winapi). It works in Python 3.3+. You can see it here:
>> http://pastebin.com/0LpyQtU5
>>
>
> Seeing this makes *me* feel better. I think it's reasonable to add (some
> variant) of that to the subprocess module in Python 3.5. It also belongs in
> the Activestate cookbook. And no, the asyncio module hasn't made it
> obsolete.
>

Cool.

Josiah, you sound upset about the whole thing -- to the point of writing
> unintelligible sentences and passive-aggressive digs at everyone reading
> this list. I'm sorry that something happened that led you feel that way (if
> you indeed feel upset or frustrated) but I'm glad that you wrote that code
> snippet -- it is completely clear what you want and why you want it, and
> also what should happen next (a few rounds of code review on the tracker).
>

I'm not always a prat. Something about python-dev brings out parts of me
that I thought I had discarded from my personality years ago. Toss in a bit
of needing to re-explain ideas that I've been trying to explain for almost
9 years? Frustration + formerly discarded personality traits = uck. That's
pretty much why I won't be rejoining the party here regularly, you are all
better off without me commenting on 95% of threads like I used to.

Victor, I'm sorry for being a jerk. It's hard for me to not be the guy I
was when I spend time on this list. That's *my* issue, not yours. That I
spent any time redirecting my frustration towards you is BS, and if I could
take back the email I sent just before getting Guido's, I would.

I would advise everyone to write it off as the ramblings of a surprisingly
young, angry old man. Or call me an a-hole. Both are pretty accurate. :)

But that PEP? It's just a terrible PEP. It doesn't contain a single line of
> example code. It doesn't specify the proposed interface, it just describes
> in way too many sentences how it should work, and contains a whole lot of
> references to various rants from which the reader is apparently meant to
> become enlightened. I don't know which of the three authors *really* wrote
> it, and I don't want to know -- I think the PEP is irrelevant to the
> proposed feature, which is of "put it in the bug tracker and work from
> there" category -- presumably the PEP was written based on the
> misunderstanding that having a PEP would make acceptance of the patch
> easier, or because during an earlier bikeshedding round someone said
> "please write a PEP" (someone always says that). I propose to scrap the PEP
> (set the status to Withdrawn) and just work on adding the methods to the
> subprocess module.
>

I'm not going to argue. The first I read it was 2-3 days ago.

If it were me, I'd define three methods, with longer names to clarify what
> they do, e.g.
>
> proc.write_nonblocking(data)
> data = proc.read_nonblocking()
> data = proc.read_stderr_nonblocking()
>

Easily doable.

I.e. add _nonblocking to the method names to clarify that they may return
> '' when there's nothing available, and have a separate method for reading
> stderr instead of a flag. And I'd wonder if there should be an unambiguous
> way to detect EOF or whether the caller should just check for
> proc.stdout.closed. (And what for stdin? IIRC it actually becomes writable
> when the other end is closed, and then the write() will fail. But maybe I
> forget.)
>
> But that's all bikeshedding and it can happen on the tracker or directly
> on the list just as easily; I don't see the need for a PEP.
>

Sounds good.

 - Josiah
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