Guido rethinking removal of cmp from sort method

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Fri, 01 Apr 2011 18:22:01 -0700, geremy condra wrote:
[...]
>>> I don't have a horse in this race, but I do wonder how much of Python
>>> could actually survive this test. My first (uneducated) guess is "not
>>> very much"- we would almost certainly lose large pieces of the string
>>> API and other builtins, and I have no doubt at all that a really
>>> significant chunk of the standard library would vanish as well. In
>>> fact, looking at the data I took from PyPI a while back, it's pretty
>>> clear that Python's feature set would look very different overall if
>>> we applied this test to everything.
>>
>>
>> I don't understand what you mean by "this test".
> 
> I mean testing whether a feature should be in Python based on whether it
> can meet some undefined standard of popularity if implemented as a
> third-party module or extension.
[...]
> Granted, but I think the implication is clear: that only those features
> which could be successful if implemented and distributed by a third
> party should be in Python.

Ah, gotcha.

I think you're reading too much into what I said -- I wasn't implying 
that community support is the only acceptable reason for the existence of 
features in Python.

Development of Python is not a democracy, it is a meritocracy. It is 
designed by a small team of language developers, starting with Guido van 
Rossum. Those who do the work decide what goes in, based on whatever 
combination of factors they choose:

* some features are such obvious no-brainers that only a complete idiot 
would leave them out ("what do you mean, there's no way to add two 
numbers?");
* what other languages do;
* personal preference;
* tools that they personally find useful, or that they expect will be 
useful to many;

etc. And *every one of these* is subject to the requirement of a rough 
consensus, or a BDFL pronouncement. The rest of us can only hope to 
persuade the Python developers: if you want somebody to scratch your itch 
instead of their own, you need to convince them to do so.

My point was that good community support is a fairly good method of 
persuasion. The broader community does not get a vote, but that does not 
mean their voices are unheard.



-- 
Steven