[Python-3000] PEP 3108: Standard Library Reorganization

[Anthony Baxter]

On Tuesday 02 January 2007 11:52, Giovanni Bajo wrote:
> Brett Cannon wrote:
> > Modules will be renamed in Python 2.6 .  The original names of
> > the modules will still work but will raise ImportWarning upon
> > import.  The refactoring tool for transitioning to Python 3.0
> > will refactor imports that use the original names to the new
> > names.
>
> Does that mean that a very large amount of existing Python code
> will raise an ImportWarning under Python 2.6? I don't think this
> is acceptable. Why should the users be bothered with deprectation
> warnings related to Python 3.0? Surely the *developers* are the
> only ones interested in this.
>
> A PendingDeprecationWarning is fine in this case too I guess. Or
> you could introduce a specific Py3kDeprecationWarning, turned on
> with a mystical -3 command line option (in which we can join all
> the features to help porting source code to Py3k).

I could not agree more. The list of modules Brett gave covers enough 
that pretty much every single piece of code I have will need to be 
edited. Worse yet, I _can't_ edit it and change it to the new names 
unless I want to abandon pre-2.6 compatibility. This is completely 
unacceptable. Living with a huge spew of warnings is not an 
acceptable outcome - for those of us running production systems in 
Python, a warning should be an indication of something to be fixed, 
not pointless log-filler.

I'd like to suggest that any warnings about 3.0 compat _not_ be 
issued by default, if the fix results in code that fails with 
earlier 2.x releases. 
Even if there's a way to fix a compat issue for pre-2.6, if it's a 
very common construct then the warning should also be suppressed by 
default. A -3 flag (or whatever it ends up being) should be used to 
enable these warnings.

Making 2.6 "the release where everyone's code starts spewing pages 
of warnings" is a bad bad thing. It will convey a terrible 
perception of Python amongst people who use it. Vendors who 
distribute code to other users will also be most unimpressed. You 
and I might know that a warning is just a warning, but many other 
people will not realise that, and will think "ohmygod - 2.6 broke 
my code!"

Anthony
-- 
Anthony Baxter     <anthony at interlink.com.au>
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.