[Python-Dev] Python 3.4: What to do about the Derby patches

[Nick Coghlan]

On 17 Feb 2014 08:36, "Greg Ewing" <greg.ewing at canterbury.ac.nz> wrote:
>
> Larry Hastings wrote:
>
>> 3) We hold off on merging the rest of the Derby patches until after
3.4.0 final ships, then we merge them into the 3.4 maintenance branch so
they go into 3.4.1.
>
>
> But wouldn't that be introducing a new feature into a
> maintenance release? (I.e. some functions that didn't
> have introspectable signatures before would gain them.)

>From a compatibility point of view, 3.4.0 will already force introspection
users and tool developers to cope with the fact that some, but not all,
builtin and extension types provide valid signature data. Additional clinic
conversions that don't alter semantics then just move additional callables
into the "supports programmatic introspection" category.

It's certainly in a grey area, but "What's in the best interest of end
users?" pushes me in the direction of counting clinic conversions that
don't change semantics as bug fixes - they get improved introspection
support sooner, and it shouldn't make life any harder for tool developers
because all of the adjustments for 3.4 will be to the associated functional
changes in the inspect module.

The key thing is to make sure to postpone any changes that impact
*semantics* (like adding keyword argument support).

Larry's plan sounds OK to me, although at this point I'd be happier leaving
even the builtin conversion until 3.4.1 (especially if we decide to publish
that not long after PyCon US).

Cheers,
Nick.

>
> --
> Greg
>
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