[stdlib-sig] should we try to add argparse?

[Michael Foord]

M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> Michael Foord wrote:
>   
>> Antoine Pitrou wrote:
>>     
>>>> Upfront people need to realize that we might have three argument
>>>> parsing libraries for a while, but it won't be forever. If we get
>>>> argparse accepted we would slowly deprecate at least optparse, if not
>>>> getopt (lat time I tried to ditch getopt for Python 3 some argued that
>>>> getopt supported stuff optparse didn't),
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> +0 on deprecating getopt, -1 on deprecating optparse. Breaking a
>>> perfectly functional and useful module is stupid.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> So we're stuck with inferior technology?
>>     
>
> If you have the choice between breaking backwards compatibility
> and downloading other implementations from PyPI, I think backwards
> compatibility counts more.
>
> We've just had a major change in the stdlib for 3.x. Then the 3.0
> release was ditched due to poor performance. If we now start
> deprecating widely used modules in 3.2, we're going to lose
> a major pro argument for using Python: that of a stable eco system
> to write code for.
>
> I don't think we should deprecate any commonly used module (in the
> 3.x branch) unless there's a clear and documented migration path
> or -even better- a migration wrapper available for the deprecated
> module.
>
> The next major round of refactoring will have to wait for
> Python 4.x.
>
>   
Language refactoring can wait for 4.0. Library improvements should be 
ongoing.

As Brett says, even if we go down this road, optparse won't actually be 
removed for several years.

Michael

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