safer ctype? (was GUIs - A modest Proposal)

Gregory Ewing greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz
Sat Jun 12 23:42:36 EDT 2010


Stephen Hansen wrote:

> Its one thing for Python to make available foot-shooting tools(this is
> good! I love ctypes, with care) for the developer, its another thing
> entirely for it to shoot at the ground in the normal course of its
> operation and hope it doesn't blow off any big toes. :)

I would hope that a module included in the stdlib was written
by a sufficiently skilled marksman that it can successfully
carry out ground-targeting without loss of appendages. And I'd
better stop before this metaphor undergoes a sudden catastrophic
stress fracture.

Seriously, though, if you can't trust someone to write safe
ctypes-using code, can you trust them to write safe C code any
better? Especially considering that the equivalent C code is
much longer and more tedious to write, with attendant risk of
the author losing concentration and making a mistake.

-- 
Greg



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