[Python-Dev] Expat -- it keeps going, and going, and going ...

[Fred L. Drake, Jr.]

Paul Prescod writes:
 > We don't want to encourage programmers to use the old xmllib API. I was
 > actually one of a minority that said that we should put the xmllib API

  I too would be fine with building xmllib on top of expat; the
most-used part of the API is quite reasonable.

 >  * the APIs are close enough that moving to SAX should be easy

  And this has two edges.

 >  * SAX is a good marketing buzzword and it makes moving from other
 > languages easier.
 >  * the xmllib API has a little bit of weird stuff inherited from
 > sgmllib.

  That can & should be fixed, regardless.

 > It's basically about causing confusion by offering too many choices.

  This is the kicker.  I really don't like deprecating xmllib, but
having two very similar APIs (SAX & xmllib) is bad for exactly this
reason.  It's better to change this now than to wait.


  -Fred

--
Fred L. Drake, Jr.	  <fdrake at acm.org>
Corporation for National Research Initiatives