[Python-Dev] Breaking up the stdlib (Was: release cadence)
Steven D'Aprano
steve at pearwood.info
Tue Jul 5 23:11:16 EDT 2016
On Tue, Jul 05, 2016 at 08:01:43PM +0200, Petr Viktorin wrote:
> In the tkinter case, compiling for source is easy on a developer's
> computer, but doing that on a headless server brings in devel files for
> the entire graphical environment.
> Are you saying Python on servers should have a way to do turtle
> graphics, otherwise it's not Python?
That's a really good question.
I don't think we have an exact answer to "What counts as Python?". It's
not like EMCAScript (Javascript) or C where there's a standard that
defines the language and standard modules. We just have some de facto
guidelines:
- CPython is definitely Python;
- Jython is surely Python, even if it lacks the byte-code of CPython and
some things behave slightly differently;
- MicroPython is probably Python, because nobody expects to be able to
run Tkinter GUI apps on an embedded device with 256K or RAM;
but it's hard to make that judgement except on a case-by-case basis.
I think though that even if there's no documented line, most people
recognise that there are "core" and "non-core" standard modules. dis and
tkinter are non-core: if µPython leaves out tkinter, nobody will be
surprised; if Jython leaves out dis, nobody will hold it against them;
but if they leave out math or htmllib that's another story.
So a headless server can probably leave out tkinter; but a desktop
shouldn't.
[...]
> > The other extreme is Javascript/Node.js, where the "just use pip" (or
> > npm in this case) philosophy has been taken to such extremes that one
> > developer practically brought down the entire Node.js ecosystem by
> > withdrawing an eleven line module, left-pad, in a fit of pique.
> >
> > Being open source, the damage was routed around quite quickly, but
> > still, I think it's a good cautionary example of how a technological
> > advance can transform a programming culture to the worse.
>
> I don't understand the analogy. Should the eleven-line module have been
> in Node's stdlib? Outside of stdlib, people are doing this.
The point is that Javascript/Node.js is so lacking in batteries that the
community culture has gravitated to an extreme version of "just use
pip". I'm not suggesting that you, or anyone else, has proposed that
Python do the same, only that there's a balance to be found between the
extremes of "everything in the Python ecosystem should be part of the
standard installation" and "next to nothing should be part of the
standard installation".
The hard part is deciding where that balance should be :-)
--
Steve
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