[Python-Dev] Optimization of the Year
Tim Peters
tim.one at comcast.net
Tue Feb 10 20:34:41 EST 2004
[Anders J. Munch]
>> There is a simpler way to make sure all clients that illicitly use
>> ob_item are updated appropriately: Break the build by renaming. If
>> ob_item is renamed to ob_items or ob_item2 or whatever, any code that
>> uses the old name will cease to compile.
[Guido]
> Good idea. We'd also have to break binary compatibility (of the List
> API) forcibly otherwise we could be fooled by 3rd party extensions
> compiled for older Python versions -- usually we're careful to keep
> binary compatibility.
I think it's a bad idea, at least until Raymond produces evidence that
overwriting ob_item in extensions isn't "just a myth". Not even Zope's C
code does that (which is my poster child for pushing the line on Python's
internals). Google doesn't turn up few enough hits on ob_item to study
exhaustively, and there's no hint via doing so that any code indexed by
Google has mucked with ob_item either.
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