[Web-SIG] PEP 444 != WSGI 2.0

[Graham Dumpleton]

On 2 January 2011 15:34, Ian Bicking <ianb at colorstudy.com> wrote:
> Until the PEP is approved, it's just a suggestion.  So for it to "really" be
> WSGI 2 it will have to go through at least some approval process; which is
> kind of ad hoc, but not so ad hoc as just to implicitly happen.  For WSGI 2
> to happen, someone has to write something up and propose it.  Alice has
> agreed to do that, working from PEP 444 which several other people have
> participated in.  Calling it "WSGI 2" instead of "Web 3" was brought up on
> this list, and the general consensus seemed to be that it made sense

Only about 2 or 3 people commented directly on it from what I
recollect. I would hardly say that is consensus. For myself it came at
a really bad time, coming off the back of a one month trip and
finishing up in a job after 8 1/2 years. If I had known that this
would lead to Alice going around and making comments like 'official'
on what is far from being  I would have objected quite strongly at the
time rather than just treating it like yet another one of the
distractions that has kept coming up over the years when dealing with
the WSGI on Python 3 issue.

> -- some
> people felt a little funny about it, but ultimately it seemed to be
> something everyone was okay with (with some people like myself feeling
> strongly it should be "WSGI 2").
>
> I'm not sure why you are so stressed out about this?

You say I am stressed and Alice in private email likes to think I am
bitter. What I am is passionate. The whole WSGI stuff over the last
few years has been handled so badly by the Python web community it is
embarrassing. We can continue this shambles or try and bring some
sanity with this process. As is, what Alice is now working on will
effectively be the 3rd or 4th variation of what WSGI 2.0 should be
depending on how you count it. First off there was PJEs basic
suggestion of dropping start_response and leaving everything else.
Others then pitched in with there wish list for that. Armin worked on
a proposal for a while and then there was PEP 444 which has mutated
again with what Alice is doing. Some of these have been seen by
outsiders as being what WSGI 2.0 will be and there have at times been
hosting mechanisms or frameworks claiming to support what these
proposals described and calling themselves WSGI 2.0. Luckily those
third party packages claiming to support some form of WSGI 2.0 have
never taken off, but either way the risk of confusion is still there.

> If you think it's
> really an issue, perhaps 2 could be replaced with "2alpha" until such time
> as it is approved?

If it is going to be done under the guise of a continually changing
PEP 444, then refer to it as PEP 444, including the environ tag
prefixes being pep444.

By allowing it to claim in some way that it is going to be WSGI 2.0
you are effectively fixing yourself down a course that that can be the
only successor for WSGI 1.0. So, if someone comes up with a much
better solution, they will be forced to call it something completely
different because you are hardly going to be able to go back and say,
sorry, we made a mistake and all you people who genuinely thought you
were coding to what was going to be a WSGI 2.0 are screwed.

Graham

> On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 8:02 PM, Graham Dumpleton
> <graham.dumpleton at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Can we please clear up a matter.
>>
>> GothAlice (don't know off hand there real name), keeps going around
>> and claiming:
>>
>> """
>> After some discussion on the Web-SIG mailing list, PEP 444 is now
>> "officially" WSGI 2, and PEP 3333 is WSGI 1.1
>> """
>>
>> In this instance on web.py forum on Google Groups.
>>
>> I have pointed out a couple of times to them that there is no way that
>> PEP 444 has been blessed as being the official WSGI 2.0 but they are
>> not listening and are still repeating this claim. They can't also get
>> right that PEP 3333 clearly says it is still WSGI 1.0 and not WSGI
>> 1.1.
>>
>> If the people here who's opinion matters are quite happy for GothAlice
>> to hijack the WSGI 2.0 moniker for PEP 444 I will shut up. But if that
>> happens, I will voice my objections by simply not having anything to
>> do with WSGI 2.0 any more.
>>
>> Graham
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>
>
>
> --
> Ian Bicking  |  http://blog.ianbicking.org
>