[Python-Dev] release plan for 2.5 ?

[Alex Martelli]

On 2/10/06, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
   ...
> Next, the schedule. Neal's draft of the schedule has us releasing 2.5
> in October. That feels late -- nearly two years after 2.4 (which was
> released on Nov 30, 2004). Do people think it's reasonable to strive
> for a more aggressive (by a month) schedule, like this:

October would seem to me to be just about right.  I don't see that one
month either way should make any big difference, though.

> ??? Would anyone want to be even more aggressive (e.g. alpha 1 right
> after PyCon???). We could always do three alphas.

If I could have a definitive frozen list of features by the first week
of April at the latest, that could make it (as a "2.5 preview") into
the 2nd edition of "Python in a Nutshell". But since alphas are not
feature-frozen, it wouldn't make much of a difference to me, I think.

> Other PEPs I'd like comment on:
>
> PEP 357 (__index__): the patch isn't on SF yet, but otherwise I'm all
> for this, and I'd like to accept it ASAP to get it in 2.5. It doesn't
> look like it'll cause any problems.

It does look great, and by whatever name I support it most heartily. 
Do, however, notice that it's "yet another specialpurpose adaptation
protocol" and that such specific restricted solutions to the general
problem, with all of their issues, will just keep piling up forever
(and need legacy support ditto) until and unless your temperature wrt
246 (or any variation thereof) should change.

> PEP 355 (path module): I still haven't reviewed this, because I'm -0
> on adding what appears to me duplicate functionality. But if there's a

I feel definitely -0 towards it too.

> PEP 315 - do while. A simple enough syntax proposal, albeit one
> introducing a new keyword (which I'm fine with). I kind of like it but
> it doesn't strike me as super important -- if we put this off until
> Py3k I'd be fine with that too. Opinions? Champions?

Another -0 from me. I suggest we shelve it for now and revisit in 3k
(maybe PEPs in that state, "not in any 2.* but revisit for 3.0", need
a special status value).

> PEP 246 - adaptation. I'm still as lukewarm as ever; it needs
> interfaces, promises to cause a paradigm shift, and the global map
> worries me.

Doesn't _need_ interfaces as a concept -- any unique markers as
"protocol names" would do, even strings, although obviously the
"stronger" the markers the better (classes/types for example would be
just perfect).  It was written on the assumption of interfaces just
because they were being proposed just before it.  The key "paradigm
shift" is to offer a way to unify what's already being widely done, in
haphazard and dispersed manners.  And I'll be quite happy to rewrite
it in terms of a more nuanced hierarchy of maps (e.g. builtin /
per-module / lexically nested, or whatever) if that's what it takes to
warm you to it -- I just think it would be over-engineering it, since
in practice the global-on-all-modules map would cover by far most
usage (both for "blessed" protocols that come with Python, and for the
use of "third party" adapting framework A to consume stuff that
framework B produces, global is the natural "residence"; other uses
are far less important.


> PEP 323 - copyable iterators. Seems stalled. Alex, do you care?

Sure, I'd like to make this happen, particularly since Raymond appears
to have already done the hard part.  What would you like to see
happening to bless it for 2.5?

> PEP 332 - byte vectors. Looks incomplete. Put off until 2.6?

Ditto -- I'd like at least SOME of it to be in 2.5.  What needs to
happen for that?


Alex