[Python-Dev] strop vs. string

[Tim Peters]

[Greg Stein]
> ...
> I was saying that, at the Python level, using a loop and doing b[i] into
> a buffer/string/unicode object would seem to be relatively rare. b[0]
> and stuff is reasonably common.

Well, at the Python level buffer objects seem never to be used, probably
because all the people who know about them don't advertise it because it's
an easy way to provoke core dumps now.  I don't have any real objection to
any way anyone wants to fix that, just so long as it gets fixed.

>> I take that as "yes" to my "nobody cares about it enough to
>> maintain it?".  In that light, Guido's ambivalence is indeed
>> surprising <wink>.

> Eh? I'll maintain the thing, but you're confusing that with adding more
> features into it. Different question.

I haven't asked for new features, just that what's already there get fixed:
Python-level buffer objects are unsafe, the docs remain incomplete, there's
random stuff like file.readinto() that's not documented at all (could be
that's the only one -- it's certainly "discovered" on c.l.py often enough,
though), and there are no buffer tests in the std test suite.  The work to
introduce the type wasn't completed, nobody works on it, and finishing work
3 years late doesn't count as "new feature" in my book <wink>.