ctypes 0.9.2 released

[Just]

In article <du7d5z1fx08.fsf at mozart.cc.tut.fi>,
 Ville Vainio <ville at spammers.com> wrote:

> >>>>> "Just" == Just  <just at xs4all.nl> writes:
> 
>     >> Seconded!  Python 2.5 should be mostly about standard-library
>     >> enhancements, and ctypes would be a huge enhancement to Python's 
>     >> stdlib.
> 
>     Just> In general, Guido is very reluctant to accept thing which
>     Just> make is easy to cause segfaults. I predict you'll have a
> 
> Why is that? Users of ctypes can quite easily understand that when
> they are using ctypes, they are not using Python but rather
> integrating Python with the environment. Of course using pure Python
> code (and integrating with only the C code that is bundled with the
> distribution) shouldn't segfault, but with ctypes tho user will know
> that the third party code is to blame.
> 
> Or are there some security issues?
> 
> One of the perceived strengths of Python is the fact that it
> integrates well with the platforms it is running on, so it's not an
> insulated box like Java.

Another one of Pythons perceived strengths is that if you get a 
segfault, it's a bug in Python. With ctypes that will no longer be as 
clear.

There's also a practical problem with including ctypes (unless it's an 
optional module, like bsddb) is that it depends (at least on unix) on a 
rather large and complex library: libffi.

I personally love ctypes, although I haven't used it in real projects 
yet. It's a wonderful package. But I don't think it's a good fit for the 
std library (regardless of the arguments above).

Just