[Python-Dev] What should the focus for 2.6 be?

[Brett Cannon]

On 8/20/06, Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:
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> On Aug 20, 2006, at 11:24 AM, Guido van Rossum wrote:
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> > I wonder if it would make sense to focus in 2.6 on making porting of
> > 2.6 code to 3.0 easier, rather than trying to introduce new features
> > in 2.6. We've done releases without new language features before;
> > notable 2.3 didn't add anything new (except making a few __future__
> > imports redundant) and concentrated on bugfixes, performance, and
> > library additions.
>
> +1, and there are other benefits to this approach too.
>
> First, the pace of change appears to slow, which addresses another
> source of complaints.  Because instead of a slew of new features
> every 18 months, we really see that slew only every three years, with
> a stabilizing and bug fixing release in between.  Another benefit is
> that with a de-emphasis on new features, we can spend more time
> improving the library and documentation.


I think fixing tests and documentation would be a great thing to focus
2.6on.  Not glamourous, I know, but it is needed.

For tests, I hope to get some decorators and such written that will help
classify tests.  Also adding a function to denote what module is being
tested would be good (to avoid the issue of a dependent import for testing
failing and then everyone just thinking the test was skipped).  Lastly,
testing the C API using ctypes would be really good since it is not
thorougly tested.

As for the docs, they just need a thorough updating.  As to whether we
should come up with some other format for Py3K with better semantic
information and that is easier to read is another question entirely.

-Brett
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