[Python-Dev] Breaking up the stdlib (Was: release cadence)

[Paul Moore]

On 6 July 2016 at 14:55, Steve Dower <steve.dower at python.org> wrote:
> I think the wsgiref issue was that it wasn't in site-packages and so
> couldn't be removed or upgraded. Having the dist-info available and putting
> them in site-packages (or a new directory?) lets us handle
> querying/replacing/removing using the existing tools we use for
> distribution.

That's the one. Thanks for the reminder. So either we move the stdlib
(or parts of it) into site-packages, or pip needs to learn to handle a
versioned stdlib. Cool.

> Also, I think the version numbers do need to be independent of Python
> version in case nothing changes between releases. If you develop something
> using statistics==3.7, but statistics==3.6 is identical, how do you know you
> can put the lower constraint? Alternatively, if it's statistics==1.0 in
> both, people won't assume it has anything to do with the Python version.

This boils down to whether we want to present the stdlib as a unified
object tied to the Python release, or a set of modules no different
from those on PyPI, that happen to be shipped with Python. I prefer
the former view (it matches better how I think of "batteries
included") whereas it looks like you prefer the latter (but don't see
that as being in conflict with "batteries included"). Debating this in
the abstract is probably not productive, so let's wait for a concrete
PEP to thrash out details like this.

Paul