[Python-Dev] PEP 362 Third Revision

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Thu, 14 Jun 2012 21:43:34 -0700
Larry Hastings <larry at hastings.org> wrote:

> On 06/14/2012 08:20 PM, Benjamin Peterson wrote:
> > 2012/6/14 Larry Hastings<larry at hastings.org>:
> >> Also, it's more granular than that.  For example, Python now understands
> >> symbolic links on Windows--but only haphazardly at best.  The
> >> "follow_symlinks" argument works on Windows for os.stat() but not for
> >> os.chmod().
> > Then indeed it's more granular than a parameter being "implemented" or
> > not. A parameter may have a more restricted or extended meaning on
> > different operating systems. (sendfile() on files for example).
> 
> If you can suggest a representation that can convey this sort of subtle 
> complexity without being miserable to use, I for one would be very 
> interested to see it.  I suggest that "is_implemented" solves a 
> legitimate problem in a reasonable way; I wasn't attempting to be all 
> things to all use cases.

I don't think it solves a legitimate problem. As Benjamin pointed out,
people want to know whether a functionality is supported, not whether a
specific parameter is "implemented". Also, the incantation to look up
that information on a signature object is definitely too complicated to
be helpful.

Regards

Antoine.