Imaginative solutions to connect. Was: Python 1.6 alpha 1 released

[James Logajan]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
> 
> Repeat after me: SOCKETS ARE NOT JUST FOR IP CONNECTIONS.
> 
> But I will fix the code -- it's the only practical thing to do.

Yes, I think a number of us understood sockets are address family neutral
but had pragmatic concerns. And as one of the first to probably fill your
mailbox (thought I would be in a minority!) it is gratifying to see a
pragmatist like yourself accede to the angry and discontented rabble before
anything unpleasant took place. <wink>

But that still leaves a problem about how to clean things up. Not sure that
there are a lot of alternatives, but here are some for a start (feel free to
add to this list!):

1) Force the issue only with Py3k but not before.
2) Create an additional class, maybe called socket1 or Socket (or TLI
<wink>) with the correction.
3) Create additional methods in socket, say Connect() or connect1() (or
correct() <wink>) [same for Bind too of course].
4) Kill all the programmers who used the wrong arguments and burn all their
code (I was thinking of changing careers anyway).

For alternatives 2 and 3 you need some incentive for people to change; cash
might work but could get expensive. Rigging keyboards to deliver electrical
shocks might work but might be too time consuming. Making the old interface
much slower might help. Perhaps someone can think of a good incentive...
(get some new and improved methods only if you use the new class, or
something?)