[Python-Dev] Backward-incompatible change to random.randrange in 2.7.6

Tim Peters tim.peters at gmail.com
Tue Dec 17 20:10:49 CET 2013


[Barry]
> ...
> I don't think the API *has* to change in a backward incompatible way either.
> The methods could be given **kws with a bit of hackery to figure out whether
> the old API was being used (keys: int, default, maxwidth) or the new API was
> being used (keys: _int and _maxwidth).  Yeah it's ugly, but we serve our users
> better by doing it that way.

-1.  The speed of randrange() is crucial for many applications;
indeed, that's the only reason it abused default arguments to begin
with (i.e., to make `int` et alia fast local lookups).  Digging
through a dict to guess which API was invoked would ruin that.

And the ZODB tests in question deserve whatever they get ;-)


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