Guido rethinking removal of cmp from sort method

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, 03 Apr 2011 16:34:34 +1000, Brian Quinlan wrote:

> On 3 Apr 2011, at 16:22, geremy condra wrote:
>> I think we're talking at cross purposes. The point I'm making is that
>> there are lots of issues where popularity as a third party module isn't
>> really a viable test for whether a feature is sufficiently awesome to
>> be in core python. As part of determining whether I thought it was
>> appropriate in this case I essentially just asked myself whether any of
>> the really good and necessary parts of Python would fail to be
>> readmitted under similar circumstances, and I think the answer is that
>> very few would come back in. To me, that indicates that this isn't the
>> right way to address this issue, although I admit that I lack any solid
>> proof to base that conclusion on.
> 
> This has been discussed a few times on python-dev. I think that most
> developers acknowledge that small-but-high-utility modules would not
> survive outside of the core because people would simple recreate them
> rather than investing the time to find, learn and use them.

That's certainly true for pure Python code, but for a C extension, the 
barrier to Do It Yourself will be much higher for most Python coders.

On the other hand, for a pure Python function or class, you could stick 
it on ActiveState's Python cookbook and get some imperfect measure of 
popularity and/or usefulness from the comments and votes there.



-- 
Steven