[Python-Dev] Python 3.6 dict becomes compact and gets a private version; and keywords become ordered

[Sven R. Kunze]

On 11.09.2016 01:41, Nathaniel Smith wrote:
> I feel like I'm missing something here... by this reasoning, we should
> *never* change the language spec when new features are added. E.g. if
> people use async/await in 3.5 then their code won't be compatible with
> 3.4, but async/await are still part of the language spec. And in any
> case, the distinction between "CPython feature" and "Python
> language-spec-guaranteed feature" is *extremely* arcane and
> inside-basebally -- it seems really unlikely that most users will even
> understand what this distinction means, never mind let it stop them
> from writing CPython-and-PyPy-specific code. Emphasizing that this is
> a new feature that only exists in 3.6+ of course makes sense, I just
> don't understand why that affects the language spec bit.
>
> (OTOH it doesn't matter that much anyway... the language spec is
> definitely a useful thing, but it's largely aspirational in practice
> -- other implementations target CPython compatibility more than they
> target language spec compatibility.)

The new dict has thousands and one advantages: no need to import 
OrderDict anymore, standard syntax for OrderDict, etc.

People will love it. But is it legal to use? I tend to agree with you 
here and say "CPython mostly is the living spec" but I'm not 100% sure 
(I even restrain from writing a blog post about it although it so 
wonderful).

Cheers,
Sven