[Python-ideas] Add recordlcass to collections module

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sat, Sep 01, 2018 at 05:10:49PM +0100, Jonathan Fine wrote:
> Hi Martin
> 
> Summary: Thank you. Your suggestion has good points. I suggest to
> advance it (i) provide a pure Python implementation of namedlist, and
> (ii) ask that the Python docs for namedtuple provide a link to
> namedlist.

Before Martin (and you) get carried away doing these things, there's a 
lot more to do first.

For starters, how about answering the questions I asked? Recapping:

- The package author describes this as a record class, not a list, 
  and it doesn't seem to support any list operations, so why do you
  and Martin want to change the name to namedlist?

- What would it mean to insert, sort, append etc named items in a 
  list? When would you want to do it?

- Have you asked the author what he thinks about putting it in the
  standard library?

  (The author calls it a "proof of concept", and it is version 0.5. 
  That doesn't sound like the author considers this a mature product.)

- How is this different from data classes? 

If the answer is that this supports iteration, why not add iteration to 
data classes? See this thread:

https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2018-August/052683.html


[...]
> 1. Focus on getting and meeting the expressed needs of users. A link
> from the Python docs will help here.

It's not the job of the Python docs to link to every and any third-party 
package that somebody might find useful.

It might -- perhaps -- make sense for the docs to mention or link to 
third-party libraries such as numpy which are widely recognised as "best 
of breed". (Not that numpy needs a link from the std lib.) But in 
general it is hardly fair for us to single out some arbitrary third- 
party libraries for official recognition while other libraries, perhaps 
better or more worthy, are ignored.

Put yourself in the shoes of somebody who has worked hard to get a 
package into a mature state, and then the Python docs start linking to a 
competing alpha-quality package just because by pure chance, that was 
the package that got mentioned on Python-Ideas first.



-- 
Steve