Backward-compatibility: help or hindrance?

[Aahz]

In article <slrnbesnp6.hcf.bignose-hates-spam at iris.polar.local>,
Ben Finney  <bignose-hates-spam at and-zip-does-too.com.au> wrote:
>On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 11:01:11 -0700, Michael Chermside wrote:
>>
>> the range() function could not simply be changed to work the way
>> xrange() works now, because there was lots of existing code out there
>> that assumed that range() returned a list. You see, the maintainers of
>> Python work quite hard to avoid as much backward-incompatibility as
>> possible.
>
>This concerns me.  Isn't it the dream of backward-compatibility that
>gave us the monster that is C++ trying to advance the programming art
>while leaving all the cruft of the old language built in?
>
>I wonder how long it'll be before Python's clean, simple design is
>hindered by anchors of old programming paradigms (that we presently hold
>dear), weighing down the language in the much-cursed name of
>"backward-compatibility".

You left out the part of Michael's post where he said that xrange() is
going away in Python 3.0.  Balance is everything.
-- 
Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com)           <*>         http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"If you don't know what your program is supposed to do, you'd better not
start writing it."  --Dijkstra