[Python-Dev] Asking for reversion

[Neil Schemenauer]

On 2019-02-05, Giampaolo Rodola' wrote:
> The main problem I have with this PR is that it seems to introduce
> 8 brand new APIs, but since there is no doc, docstrings or tests
> it's unclear which ones are supposed to be used, how or whether
> they are supposed to supersede or deprecate older (slower) ones
> involving inter process communication.

New or changed APIs are my major concern as well.  Localized
problems can be fixed later without much trouble.  However, APIs
"lock" us in and make it harder to change things later.  Also, will
new APIs need to be eventually supported by other Python
implementations?  I would imagine that doing zero-copy mixed with
alternative garbage collection strategies could be complicated.
Could we somehow mark these APIs as experimental in 3.8?

My gut reaction is that we shouldn't revert.  However, looking at
the changes, it seems 'multiprocessing.shared_memory' could be an
external extension package that lives in PyPI.  It doesn't require
changes to other interpreter internals.  It doesn't seem to require
internal Python header files.

Regards,

  Neil