[Python-Dev] Changing existing class instances

[Barry A. Warsaw]

>>>>> "TP" == Tim Peters <tim_one@email.msn.com> writes:

    TP> Under the explicit new.update scheme, such a service needn't
    TP> bother clients with communicating the full name of the
    TP> original module; heck, in a *truly* long-running app, over
    TP> time the source tree will change, and classes and functions
    TP> will migrate across modules.  That will be a problem for the
    TP> explicit scheme too (how does it know *which* "class Misc" to
    TP> update) -- but at least it's an explicit problem then, and not
    TP> a "mysterous failure" of hidden magic.

I completely agree.  I think in general, such long running apps are
rare, and in those cases you probably want to be explicit about when
and how the updates occur anyway.  The one place where automatic
updates would be convenient would be at the interactive prompt, so it
might be nice to add a module that could be imported by PYTHONSTARTUP,
and play hook games to enable automatic updates.

-Barry