Python evolution: Unease

[Carlos Ribeiro]

On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 10:39:10 -0300, Batista, Facundo
<FBatista at unifon.com.ar> wrote:
> #- need: a better standard ide, an integrated db interface with 
> #- a proper 
> #- set of db drivers (!!), a better debugger, a standard widget/windows 
> #- toolkit, something akin to a standard for web programming, better 
> #- documentation, a standard lib which is better organized, a 
> #- formalized 
> #- set of protocols and patterns for program construction. And an 
> #- interpreter which is fast enough to avoid using C or Pyrex in most 
> #- obvious cases. 
> 
> Let's take one by one: 

I'll take only a few ;-)
 
> - IDE: Better than what? Than IDLE? Than Eclipse? Than SPE? Than Pythonwin? 

I would like to seee Eric3, with some polish & opensourced on Win
(which means solving the Qt licensing problem). Perhaps someone could
convince Trolltech to release a special Qt Win version just for it
(Eric3). Eclipse is also an interesting approach.
 
> - Integrated DB interface with a proper set of db drivers (what means the
> "!!"?): What do you mean with an integrated db interface? An standard API to
> access different DB engines? Something like the Database API specification
> (http://www.python.org/topics/database/DatabaseAPI-2.0.html)? There's a SIG
> on DB at http://www.python.org/sigs/db-sig/ you may want to look at.
> Regarding drivers, to what DB do you miss one? 

At the risk of starting a huge flamewar, let's state my opinion on
this. The DBAPI itself is not a problem, despite several debates about
improvements and talks about a future version 3. On the other hand, I
wish I could simply plug & play DBAPI modules in a totally seamlessly
way. Anyone who tried know how far are we of this dream.

At the risk of sounding pessimistic, I don't see plug & play
interoperability between DBAPI drivers happening anytime soon. The
work is simply way too fragmented. There's no real incentive for
compatibility, besides the good will of individual developers, who are
always busy and also, that have to keep their own code running. The
only way it will work, IMHO, is: if a single entity implements a
common API, be it the DBAPI2.0 or whatever, for a sufficiently large
number of existing database systems. You may call it a "imposed
standard". I don't mind. But it would solve the problem.
 
> - Standard widget/windows toolkit: More standard than Tk? 

I may be wrong, but I think that most business developers expect more
than Tk is able to offer... Canvas is great, but anyone who used more
advanced toolkits (such as the ones available on Delphi, Java, or C#)
surely require a lot more.

-- 
Carlos Ribeiro
Consultoria em Projetos
blog: http://rascunhosrotos.blogspot.com
blog: http://pythonnotes.blogspot.com
mail: carribeiro at gmail.com
mail: carribeiro at yahoo.com