Python's "only one way to do it" philosophy isn't good?

[Steve Holden]

Douglas Alan wrote:
> "Chris Mellon" <arkanes at gmail.com> writes:
[...]
>> The Python language reference explicitly does *not* guarantee the
>> behavior of the refcounter.
> 
> Are you suggesting that it is likely to change?  If so, I think you
> will find a huge uproar about it.
> 
>> By relying on it, you are relying on an implementation specific,
>> non-specified behavior.
> 
> I'm relying on a feature that has worked fine since the early '90s,
> and if it is ever changed in the future, I'm sure that plenty of other
> language changes will come along with it that will make adapting code
> that relies on this feature to be the least of my porting worries.
> 
Damn, it seems to be broken on my Jython/IronPython installations, maybe 
I should complain. Oh no, I can't, because it *isn't* *part* *of* *the* 
*language*. ...

>> Exactly like you'd be doing if you rely on the value of
>> uninitialized variables in C.
> 
> Exactly like I'd be doing if I made Unix system calls in my C code.
> After all, system calls are implementation dependent, aren't they?
> That doesn't mean that I don't rely on them every day.
> 
That depends on whether you program to a specific standard or not.

>>> There are languages other than C that guarantee that values are
>>> initialized in certain ways.  Are you going to also assert that in
>>> those languages you should not rely on the initialization rules?
> 
>> Of course not. Because they *do* guarantee and specify that. C
>> doesn't, and neither does Python.
> 
> CPython does by tradition *and* by popular will.
> 
But you make the mistake of assuming that Python is CPython, which it isn't.

> Also the language reference manual specifically indicates that CPython
> uses a refcounter and documents that it collects objects as soon as
> they become unreachable (with the appropriate caveats about circular
> references, tracing, debugging, and stored tracebacks).
> 
Indeed, but that *is* implementation dependent. As long as you stick to 
CPython you'll be fine. That's allowed. Just be careful about the 
discussions you get into :-)

regards
  Steve
-- 
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