Maintenance release? (Was RE: Variables different between .py and .pyc)

[Tim Peters]

[Carlos Ribeiro, on a proposed change to make .pyc/.pyo files store
 repr(float) instead of str(float)]

> I think that this may be a wonderful reason to build a maintenance
> release of Python 2.1...

Hard to say:  Python has *always* worked this way!

> Will this change break compatibility on the .pyc format, or can it
> be done in a compatible way?

The .pyc format doesn't care -- when it sees the "float" typecode, it just
reads the following string into a buffer and passes it to atof().

However, for 2.0.1, Aahz has been talking a hard "*no* chance of breaking
code!" line.  While the .pyc format is clearly losing gobs of precision
needlessly here, it's certainly going to change results if precision gets
boosted.

> If so, I think that a maintenance build should be made (I know that
> you're not responsible for this,  Tim, I'm  just raising the issue
> here...).

That's fine.  A 2.1.1 will be built regardless of what happens to this one,
and 2.1.1 is Thomas Wouters's domain.