[Python-ideas] An official complaint regarding the marshal and pickle documentation

[Aahz]

On Thu, Mar 06, 2008, Greg Ewing wrote:
>
> BTW, I only consider pickle suitable for quick and dirty uses anyway,
> because it ties the external representation very closely to internal
> details of your program, which can make it difficult to evolve the
> program without invalidating previously written files.
>
> For long-term use, it's better to invest time in a
> properly-thought-out external format for the task, designed with
> extensibility in mind.

Maybe so, but my company has been using pickle as a primary long-term
storage mechanism for more than a decade.  We only rarely have problems
with code changes causing pickle problems (less than once per year).
OTOH, we mostly only have a growing internal format -- we almost never
change the internal format.
-- 
Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com)           <*>         http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of     
indirection."  --Butler Lampson