[Python-Dev] New hash algorithms: SHA3, SHAKE, BLAKE2, truncated SHA512

[Raymond Hettinger]

> On May 25, 2016, at 3:29 AM, Christian Heimes <christian at python.org> wrote:
> 
> I have three hashing-related patches for Python 3.6 that are waiting for
> review. Altogether the three patches add ten new hash algorithms to the
> hashlib module: SHA3 (224, 256, 384, 512), SHAKE (SHA3 XOF 128, 256),
> BLAKE2 (blake2b, blake2s) and truncated SHA512 (224, 256).

Do we really need ten?  I don't think the standard library is the place to offer all variants of hashing.  And we should avoid getting in a cycle of "this was just released by NIST" and "nobody uses that one anymore".  Is any one of them an emergent best practice (i.e. starting to be commonly used in network protocols because it is better, faster, stronger, etc)?

Your last message on https://bugs.python.org/issue16113 suggests that these aren't essential and that there is room for debate about whether some of them are standard-library worthy (i.e. we will have them around forever).


Raymond