[XML-SIG] Re: Finding _xmlplus in Python 2.3a2

[Martin v. Löwis]

"Thomas B. Passin" <tpassin@comcast.net> writes:

> I realize that we do not want to mix-and-match parts of the standard library
> with parts of PyXML, and perhaps that is one of the main concerns that
> Martin is expressing (Martin, is that right?).

I have a number of concerns, both maintainer issues, and user issues.

1. Maintenance issues:

   a) proposed change is unimplementable (more precisely: the
      straight-forward implementation is incorrect)
      Just renaming _xmlplus can't work: you get duplicate classes, in
      particular exception classes; if you mix them, you get
      surprising errors. Likewise, you get multiple .dom.Node classes,
      which is evil.

   b) proposed change creates an ongoing maintenance problem, because
      of nearly-shared files.

2. User issues:
   I'm concerned that proponents of "ditch _xmlplus" only see the
   problems that this would solve, not the problems that this would
   create.
   a) Users have to change tons of code.
   b) Users will be confused which of two nearly-identical libraries they
      should use.

Regards,
Martin