[stdlib-sig] Breaking out the stdlib

[Paul Moore]

2009/9/15 M.-A. Lemburg <mal at egenix.com>:
> Laura Creighton wrote:
>> So what do you think of this proposal?
>
> Good write-up and very much to the point.
>
> [Executive Summary:
> Code that hardly needs any changes, because it does what it's meant
> to do, is good code, not bad code. And it causes only minimal
> maintenance effort, so it's actually something core developer should
> welcome rather than fight against.]
>
> I'd only change the tag "dead-as-a-doornail" to "complete, proven and
> stable". Sounds more accurate.

Yes, I like both the summary, and the proposal (that standard library
code be tagged with details like its status and its maintainer).

I was in the "stdlib needs to evolve" camp, but this has clarified the
other side of the argument, and changed my mind.

I'm still in favour of new modules being added to the stdlib, and
existing modules being updated, but I support the idea of stage C
(dead as a doornail/complete, proven, stable) modules being retained
indefinitely. I'm not sure what the implications of this position
would be in the case of argparse vs optparse (optparse doesn't seem to
be stage C, so maybe removing it in favour of argparse is an option)
but I like the fact that this proposal gives us terminology on which
we can base the discussion.

Paul.