[Python-ideas] Experimental package

[Andrew Barnert]

On Mar 2, 2013, at 17:00, João Bernardo <jbvsmo at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2013/3/2 Terry Reedy
>> 
>> Load 3.3 and use it. If you need an external 3.x library that will not run on 3.3 yet, 6 months after release, bug the author. If you want your code to run on earlier releases, select new and old versions with 'if version....'/
>> 
>>> It's sad that it may take possibly 5 or 10 years to see this statement
>>> being used in real programs...
>> 
>> But it will not take that long. 'yield from' plays an essential role in Guido's new asynch package (code name: Tulip), which he hope will be ready for 3.4. It will probably also run in 3.3, but that will be it. People who want to use it will have to upgrade.
>  
> Writing new stuff for the stdlib doesn't need to be compatible with older python versions... I develop on 3.3 but need to support 3.1 or 3.0.

Is there really that much need to support 3.0? I write stuff all the time that requires 2.6, 2.7, or 3.2 or later, and I've had many people asking for 2.5, but not a single request for 3.1 or 3.0. Is that not typical?

> Now, if you had a partial version of "yield from" syntax on 3.1 that could solve 50% of the problems of the current syntax, it would be used a lot by now.

But there wasn't a working version, partial or otherwise, to add at the time.

And even if the usual rule of "no backports to bug fix releases" we're suspended, do you really have users who would gladly upgrade to a later 3.1, but can't upgrade to a later 3.x? In my experience, people who stick with an old version are doing it because "that's the version that comes with CentOS x.y" or similar. Are there any important OS/distro extended service releases that come with 3.1?

Meanwhile, if you need a workaround, it's not that hard. I've got code that does this today: I have my nifty 3.3 module, and the fallback is in a separate module, so I can "import foo33 as foo" or "import foo26 as foo" as appropriate.
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