[Python-ideas] discouraging direct use of the C-API

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Wed, 6 May 2015 18:27:20 -0400
Donald Stufft <donald at stufft.io> wrote:
> 
> > On May 6, 2015, at 6:16 PM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis-xNDA5Wrcr86sTnJN9+BGXg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > 
> > On Wed, 6 May 2015 13:13:57 -0400
> > Donald Stufft <donald at stufft.io> wrote:
> >> 
> >>> On May 6, 2015, at 12:57 PM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis-xNDA5Wrcr86sTnJN9+BGXg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> >>> 
> >>> On Wed, 6 May 2015 10:23:09 -0600
> >>> Eric Snow <ericsnowcurrently at gmail.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>> A big blocker to making certain sweeping changes to CPython (e.g.
> >>>> ref-counting) is compatibility with the vast body of C extension
> >>>> modules out there that use the C-API.  While there are certainly
> >>>> drastic long-term solutions to that problem, there is one thing we can
> >>>> do in the short-term that would at least get the ball rolling.  We can
> >>>> put a big red note at the top of every page of the C-API docs that
> >>>> encourages folks to either use CFFI or Cython.
> >>> 
> >>> CFFI is only useful for a small subset of stuff people use the C API for
> >>> (mainly, thin wrappers around external libraries). Cython is a more
> >>> reasonable suggestion in this context.
> >> 
> >> You can write stuff in C itself for cffi too, it’s not just for C bindings,
> >> an example would be the .c’s and .h’s for padding and constant time compare
> >> in the cryptography project [1].
> > 
> > That really doesn't change what I said.  CFFI is not appropriate to
> > write e.g. actual extension classes.
> 
> 
> What is an “actual extension class”?

Uh... Please take a look at the C API manual.

Regards

Antoine.