[4suite] Re: [XML-SIG] problem whith the error " ImportError: cannot import name boolean"

[Uche Ogbuji]

On Sun, 2002-07-28 at 00:45, Mike Olson wrote:
> On Sat, 2002-07-27 at 23:52, Uche Ogbuji wrote:
> > 
> > Whatever is unclean about it?  It is using the environment for just what
> > it is supposed to be.  Do you say that having clashing modules with the
> > same name is cleaner?  I hardly think so.
> 
> It comes down to our difference of opinion on what env vars are used
> for.  I think they should be used for a user of an application to give
> information to the application.  Not as another place for an application
> to store global variables.

Actually, I have never heard of this difference of opinion before.  The
last time I pinned you down on any remotely related matter was the issue
of extension modules where you said that your problem was not the use of
the environment, but the use of a module-global dictionary, which I had
never denied was unsuitable.  We still use the environment for listign
additional extension modules, and should.

In several conversations I remember your just generally grumbling that
you don't like environment variables, but never really giving any
substance to back such grumbling.  Yet you used the environment in the
implementation of 4ss agent, which I think is fine, but involves the app
using the environment to store global data, which seems a contradiction
to your view.

Anyway, do you have any basis for your restriction of what you think
environments should be used for?  They are precisely a global
"dictionary" for applications, have always been so, and are used so in a
million different ways by a million different applications.

Since I doubt you'll be able to answer this on spec or conventional
grounds, I'll make the task easier: can you tell me specifically how
using os.environment in the way I did is problematic in 4Suite?


> I still like this solution better.  It does exactly what we need,

As does mine

> does not effect import time,

I would bet my approach is faster than yours.

> does not improperly use env vars.

matter of dispute.


-- 
Uche Ogbuji                                    Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net    http://4Suite.org    http://fourthought.com
Track chair, XML/Web Services One Boston: http://www.xmlconference.com/
Basic XML and RDF techniques for knowledge management, Part 7 -
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Python and XML development using 4Suite, Part 3: 4RDF -
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