equivalent of Ruby's Pathname?

[Steve Holden]

Phlip wrote:
> Carl Banks wrote:
> 
>> I don't know if it was the reason it was rejected, but a seriously
>> divisive question is whether the path should be a subset of string.
> 
> OMG that's nothing but the OO "circle vs ellipse" non-question. Glad
> to see the Committee derailed a perfectly good library over such
> sophistry.
> 
That's nothing but the most arrant nonsense, as you would discover if
you took the trouble to read the discussion on python-dev instead of
jumping to conclusions.

>> Under ordinary circumstances it would be a poor choice for inheritance
>> (only a few string methods would be useful fot a pathname), but some
>> people were fiercely adamant that paths should be passable to open()
>> as-in (without having to explicity convert to string).
> 
> That's just silly. To be object-based, you should say path.open('r').
> fopen() and its ilk are too 1960s...
> 
What? Are you arguing for "myfile.txt".open('r') to be a valid Python
construct? If not then surely you can see that paths would require
different treatment from strings, which was the main thrust of the
discussion on the dev list.

I find it really irritating when the clueless come along and criticize
decisions made by the developers after thorough discussion. Not only do
decisions have to be made about how code is going to work (and work for
the next twenty years or so), but someone has to commit to maintaining
the code before it goes in (otherwise Python will be full of bit-rot).

To call your criticism ill-informed would be flattering it.

> My 5th Grade science teacher, one Eunice Feight, once expressed
> chagrin for submitting a proposal to Readers' Digest, and getting it
> accepted. She sold them the following sloka:
> 
>   Don't be clever don't be witty
>   Or you'll wind up BEING the Committee!
> 
Criticism isn't pretty
Specially when your logic's shitty.

regards
 Steve
-- 
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