when will python 2.5 take in mainstream?

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Thu Feb 22 12:58:57 EST 2007


Paul Rubin schrieb:
> Laurent Pointal <laurent.pointal at limsi.fr> writes:
>> IMHO trying to have a binary compatibility with older compiled modules
>> by maintaining an ad-hoc layer to switch between 2.4/2.5 engines make
>> Python code more complex. And more complex code have generally more
>> bugs. This is the reason for my KISS hope about Python.
> 
> I haven't heard of other languages that seriously try to do that,
> though maybe some do.  

Languages typically achieve this by specifying an ABI (in addition
to the API), and then sticking to that.

The most prominent example is the language C, where you normally
can upgrade the C library on most current systems without having
to recompile all applications. Today, there is machinery to still
allow evolution of the C library. E.g. on Linux, there really
is a layer in the C library to provide binary compatibility with
earlier versions.

Another example is Java and JNI, which is an interface that just
won't change (AFAIK).

Similar to Python, Tcl has a layer of function pointers that is
designed to be version-indepdendent - whether this actually works,
I don't know.

There are many more examples.

Regards,
Martin




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