[Numpy-discussion] question about future support for python-3

[Robert Kern]

On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 11:40, Christopher Barker<Chris.Barker at noaa.gov> wrote:
> Robert Kern wrote:
>> On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 07:15, Darren Dale<dsdale24 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> We aren't supposed to break APIs that aren't related to the 2-3
>> transition. PEP3118 is related to the 2-3 transition. Since I'm that
>> somebody that always pipes up about this topic, I'm pretty sure it
>> hasn't been PEP3118-related breakage that has been proposed.
>
> Is there a difference between changing the C api and the Python API? I'd
> kind of expect that any C code is going to be broken more than Python
> code anyway, so maybe that's a distinction worth making.
>
> Or maybe not -- I suppose the logic is that the transition of user code
> form 2->3 should be as easy as possible, so we don't want users to have
> to deal with Python changes, and numpy changes, and wxPython changes,
> and ??? all at once.

Yes, that is the logic. If the breakage is actually related to the
Python 3 transition (e.g. reworking things to use bytes and unicode
instead of str), then it's okay. You do whatever you need to do to
convert your code to work with Python 3. What you shouldn't do is
break APIs for reasons that are unrelated to the transition, like
cleaning up various warts that have been bugging us over the years.

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless
enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as
though it had an underlying truth."
  -- Umberto Eco