[Python-Dev] Silent Deprecation Candidate -- buffer()

[Scott Gilbert]

--- Raymond Hettinger <python@rcn.com> wrote:
> RH> > The change was based on the advice I got.
> TP > Wasn't that an empty set?
> 
> Not unless Scott Gilbert is a null:
> 
> SG > > >  "... So the best bet would be to have it just always return a
> string..."
> 

I'm pretty close to a null.  :-)


Besides I don't think my comments to you made the list.   At least I don't
remember CC'ing them to python-dev...  I'd be happy to foward those
messages to the list if there is interest, but I don't think there is <0.5
grin>.

I personally don't have much stake in the buffer object.  It looked like
something that would be useful for several things that I'm interested in,
but when I looked closer I realized it just isn't.  If it's politically the
correct thing to leave it broken, then that gets my unneeded blessing.  It
would be nice if _that_ decision was documented somewhere instead of
everything just getting quiet when the topic is brought up.  Tim has said
before that this is one of those yearly pointless discussions.  I would
have read Guido's essay on the topic if I knew how to find it...

As I've said before though, a mutable byte array object that pickled
efficiently, could be constructed from a pointer & destructor, and promised
not to invalidate your pointer when the GIL is released would be useful. 
And it looks like Guido's long lost essay seems to concur with this in a
few places.  

Asynchronous file I/O, concurrent calculation on numeric arrays, page
aligned memory for DMA transfers, all sorts of other goodies could use
something like this.  Of course the buffer object can't be used for any of
these.  Guido's essay seems to indicate that one of the reasons not to add
something like this is because there is no equivalent in Java, and
therefore Jython.  I don't find that motivating.  Let Jython be portable in
the Java sense of the word, and let Python be powerful everywhere there is
a working C compiler...






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