[Web-SIG] [stdlib-sig] Choosing one of two options for url* in the stdlib reorg

[Brett Cannon]

On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 4:56 PM, Raymond Hettinger <python at rcn.com> wrote:
> I'm inclined towards the fancy naming option.  Ditching the most commonly used module in the standard library doesn't seem like progress to me.  The thing that seems to bug people is choosing between urllib and urllib2 without knowing how they differ.

The question is whether most of urllib's usage is simple and through
urlopen(), in which case most code can just use urllib2's
implementation seamlessly. In which case urllib is just code that is
unneeded and taking up developer cycles to maintain. Plus having it
removed from the stdlib does not mean it won't still be available.
Anything removed from the stdlib can easily be made as an external
download that is 3.0 compatible that people can drop in to use until
they have time to transition over to what is now urllib2.

If urllib doesn't go between 2.x and 3.0 I will push to have it
deprecated at some point in 3.x life cycle. I would rather have the
module made an external download at transition time instead of having
to continue to maintain it in both 2.x and 3.x for any great length of
time.

But since I don't have answers to everything I am asking here. =)

-Brett