[Python-ideas] a segment tree of available features for the current/a given Python interpreter

[Nick Coghlan]

On 30 May 2015 at 23:15, Wes Turner <wes.turner at gmail.com> wrote:
> To reframe the problem (set the subject line), a segment tree of available
> features for the current/a given Python interpreter would be useful.
>
> * [ ] this could be e.g. 'features.py' and
> * [ ] requested of (new) implementations (with historical data)
> * [ ] very simple Python package (python.features ?)

Now I'm even more convinced I'm not following you properly :)

Is it perhaps a request for a programmatically queryable version of
Ned Batchelder's "What's in which Python?" articles?

http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/201109/whats_in_which_python.html
http://nedbatchelder.com/blog/201310/whats_in_which_python_3.html

If yes, that seems like a reasonable idea, but would likely work
better as a community maintained PyPI module, rather than as a
standard library module. My rationale for that:

* older versions would need support for new feature checks to avoid
failing on the feature checker
* other implementations could contribute as needed to adjust feature
checks that were overly specific to CPython
* the community could collectively determine what "features" were
sufficiently interesting to be worth tracking through the relevant
projects issue tracker, rather than the core development team needing
to decide a priori which new features in each release end users are
going to want to conditionally adopt

If that interpretation of the question is incorrect, then you're going
to need to expand more on the problem you're hoping to solve with this
suggestion.

Regards,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia