[Python-ideas] Making the stdlib consistent again

[Paul Moore]

On 25 July 2016 at 18:55, Ralph Broenink <ralph at ralphbroenink.net> wrote:
> For all of these inconsistencies, I think we should make a 'consistently'
> named alternative, and alias the original variant with them (or the other
> way around), without defining a deprecation timeline for the original names.
> This should make it possible to eventually make the stdlib consistent,
> Pythonic and unsurprising.
>
> What would you think of such an effort?

It sounds to me like rather a lot of effort, for limited benefit. I
suspect few people will actually start using the new names (as they
likely have to continue supporting older versions of Python for a long
time yet) and so the benefit will actually be lower than we'd like.
Also, you'd need to put a lot of effort into updating the tests -
should they use the new or the old names, and how would they test that
both names behave identically? So there's probably more effort than
you'd think.

Also, there's a lot of tutorial material - books, courses, websites -
that would need to change.

So overall, I think practicality beats purity here, and such a change
is not worth the effort.

Paul