[Python-Dev] breaking list.append()

[Ken Manheimer]

On Wed, 1 Mar 2000, Mark Hammond wrote:

> > Why don't we simply move forward with the assumption that PythonWin and
> > Scintilla will be updated?
> 
> Done :-)
> 
> However, I think dropping it now _is_ a little heavy handed.  I decided to
> do a wider search and found a few in, eg, Sam Rushings calldll based ODBC
> package.
> 
> Personally, I would much prefer a warning now, and drop it later.  _Then_ we
> can say we have made enough noise about it.  It would only be 2 years ago
> that I became aware that this "feature" of append was not a feature at all -
> up until then I used it purposely, and habits are sometimes hard to change
> :-)

I agree with mark.  Why the sudden rush??  It seems to me to be unfair to
make such a change - one that will break peoples code - without advanced
warning, which typically is handled by a deprecation period.  There *are*
going to be people who won't be informed of the change in the short span
of less than a single release. Just because it won't cause you pain isn't
a good reason to disregard the pain of those that will suffer,
particularly when you can do something relatively low-cost to avoid it.

Ken
klm@digicool.com