A critique of cgi.escape

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

In message <efakbd$867$1 at news.albasani.net>, Georg Brandl wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> In message <mailman.559.1159188171.10491.python-list at python.org>, Fredrik
>> Lundh wrote:
>> 
>>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>> 
>>>>> Georg Brandl wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> A function is broken if its implementation doesn't match the
>>>>>> documentation.
>>>>>
>>>>> or if it doesn't match the designer's intent.  cgi.escape is old
>>>>> enough that we would have noticed that, by now...
>>>>
>>>> _We_ certainly have noticed it.
>>> 
>>> you're not the designer...
>> 
>> I don't have to be. Whoever the designer was, they had not properly
>> thought through the uses of this function. That's quite obvious already,
>> to anybody who works with HTML a lot. So the function is broken and needs
>> to be fixed.
>> 
>> If you're worried about changing the semantics of a function that keeps
>> the same "cgi.escape" name, then fine. We delete the existing function
>> and add a new, properly-designed one. _That_ will be a wake-up call to
>> all the users of the existing function to fix their code.
> 
> What about the users who don't need to "fix" their code since it's working
> fine and flawlessly with the current cgi.escape?

They're just lucky. I guess, that the bugs haven't bitten them--yet.