A critique of cgi.escape

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

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.