[XML-SIG] Re: saxlib 1.0beta

[Andrew Kuchling]

Paul Prescod writes:
>Okay, I'm just going to come out and be a jerk: I only think we should
>continue to add stuff to xmllib if we can justify its superiority over
>xmlproc. I would much rather add an sgmllib-like driver for xmlproc and

	Let me get your proposal clear; you're suggesting that we drop
having a driver for using xmllib, and just use xmlproc or Expat,
right?  I don't really see a problem with that; we have to distribute
the .py files for DOM, SAX, and whatever else, so adding the xmlproc
files to the list isn't a big problem.  It's sort of unsettling that
Python will ship with an XML parser that then won't be used at all by
the fancier XML tools, but I don't see a way around that, unless some
subset of the XML package becomes a standard part of Python.

>For some future Python upgrade, we should also consider deprecating the
>sgmllib interface in favour of the SAX interface for the same reasons that
>we would deprecate a socket interface that was too divergent from that
>used in other languages.

	Yes; good point.

	An aside about DOM: I haven't been trying to focus the SIG's
interest to DOM up to this point, for two reasons.  First, it's still
in the working draft stage.  Secondly, SAX is much closer to being
frozen (has Megginson officially stamped his Java implementation as
1.0 final?).  Therefore Lars M. has been busier than Stefane...  DOM
will also present some tricky technical problems, such as thread
safety.

	Within a few weeks, I hope to have the following done: document the
Python SAX interfaces, provide a first cut at a SAX/Python tutorial,
wrap SAX + Expat + current DOM + documentation into a single .tgz
file, and then we'd have a first snapshot release.

	(It would be nice if some Java-related code could be in that
release, too.  Paul, what's the status of your work with JPython?)

	Once that's done, hopefully some brave souls will start trying
to use SAX, so comments and bug reports will begin coming in.  At the
same time, we can worry about JPython, about DOM, and about Unicode
support for Python.  I'm not sure which should come first; perhaps DOM
can still wait, while we try to get a good solution for Unicode.  On
the other hand, Unicode support won't be added as part of the 1.5
development cycle, so it would have to wait until the next major
release of Python, and that's probably a long time off.

-- 
A.M. Kuchling			http://starship.skyport.net/crew/amk/
Destiny smells of dust and the libraries of night. He leaves no footprints. He
casts no shadow.
    -- From SANDMAN: "Season of Mists", episode 0