[Python-Dev] Proposal: explicitly disallow function/class mismatches in accelerator modules

[Brett Cannon]

On Sat, 9 Jul 2016 at 06:52 Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm in the process of trying to disentangle
> http://bugs.python.org/issue27137 which points out some of the
> behavioural differences that arise when falling back from the original
> C implementation of functools.partial to the pure Python emulation
> that uses a closure.
>
> That issue was opened due to a few things that work with the C
> implementation that fail with the Python implementation:
>
> - the C version can be pickled (and hence used with multiprocessing)
> - the C version can be subclassed
> - the C version can be used in "isinstance" checks
> - the C version behaves as a static method, the Python version as a
> normal instance method
>
> While I'm planning to accept the patch that converts the pure Python
> version to a full class that matches the semantics of the C version in
> these areas as well as in its core behaviour, that last case is one
> where the pure Python version merely exhibits different behaviour from
> the C version, rather than failing outright.
>
> Given that the issues that arose in this case weren't at all obvious
> up front, what do folks think of the idea of updating PEP 399 to
> explicitly prohibit class/function mismatches between accelerator
> modules and their pure Python counterparts?
>

I think flat-out prohibiting won't work in the Python -> C case as you can
do things such as closures and such that I don't know if we provide the
APIs to mimic through the C API. I'm fine saying we "strongly encourage
mirroring the design between the pure Python and accelerated version for
various reasons".

-Brett


>
> The rationale for making such a change is that when it comes to true
> drop-in API compatibility, we have reasonable evidence that "they're
> both callables" isn't sufficient once the complexities of real world
> applications enter the picture.
>
> Regards,
> Nick.
>
> --
> Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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