[Python-Dev] Deprecated xmllib module

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Raymond Hettinger wrote:
> * Deprecated modules just get moved to the lib-old directory.  If
> someone has ancient code relying on the module, it is a somewhat trivial
> maintenance step to add lib-old to their PYTHONPATH.  IOW, I fail to see
> the harm.

I have never considered this as an official policy. For example, when
deprecated C modules are removed, they are never moved to lib-old.

> * For this particular module, xmllib, about six years will have elapsed
> between its original deprecation in Py2.0 and us taking it out in a
> Py2.5 release.  

Correct. For regex, much more time has passed (it is deprecated since
1.5 or something).

> * The number one current python complaint is the state of the standard
> library:  http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3441931 .
> Some of this may just be the fruits of AMK's highly publicized journal
> entry; however, I think the concerns about library quality will persist.

I agree. Removing old modules might change this, indeed: the complaint
about unstability and incompatibility might then become the number one
complaint :-)

> * The average quality of the library improves as we take out junk (the
> tzparse module for example) and put in high quality modules like
> logging, csv, decimal, etc.

I am not convinced that all these more recent modules are really higher
quality than the modules that have been added ten years ago. Some are
(especially those which has seen extensive testing before being
integrated), some are not (especially those added in an ad-hoc manner).

Regards,
Martin