What's missing from python?

[Peter Hickman]

John Burton wrote:

> One of the reasons I like python so much is that the standard 
> installation comes with a whole lot of libraries to do lots of useful 
> things but there seem to be a few things missing from the standard 
> library which would be useful in many projects:

It depends on what you regard as a 'standard library'. For me it is the 
minimum required to use the language in a general sense. The smallest 
subset of all the possible modules. Thus access to the file system is a 
requirement but Encryption, DNS, Database, etc are not.

I can use Python without them but take away access to the file system an 
Python becomes less useful. Besides do we really want a humungous 
standard library, a al Java, or something you could actually get your 
head around.

> Is there any reason why those things are not already in the standard 
> library?

Gadfly is a useful SQL database in Python and I am sure that the 
developer(s) are fully committed to supporting it into the future. 
However if it becomes part of the standard library then this would 
impose an additional workload / strain of the developers.

Unless the code is perfect it will require maintainance and testing as 
Python grows. As the standard library grows the amount of testing grows 
with it, and it is probably not linear.

This alone would be a reason to keep the standard library small.