On Thu, 29 Nov 2018 at 21:33, Nathaniel Smith <n...@pobox.com> wrote: > > On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 10:22 AM Antoine Pitrou <anto...@python.org> wrote: > > > > Le 29/11/2018 à 19:07, Steve Dower a écrit : > > > On 29Nov2018 0923, Antoine Pitrou wrote: > > >> I think the whole argument amounts to hand waving anyway. You are > > >> inventing an extended distribution which doesn't exist (except as > > >> Anaconda) to justify that we shouldn't accept more modules in the > > >> stdlib. But obviously maintaining an extended distribution is a lot > > >> more work than accepting a single module in the stdlib, and that's why > > >> you don't see anyone doing it, even though people have been floating the > > >> idea for years. > > > > > > https://anaconda.com/ > > > https://www.activestate.com/products/activepython/ > > > http://winpython.github.io/ > > > http://python-xy.github.io/ > > > https://www.enthought.com/product/canopy/ > > > https://software.intel.com/en-us/distribution-for-python > > > http://every-linux-distro-ever.example.com > > > > > > Do I need to keep going? > > > > I'm sure you could. So what? The point is that it's a lot of work to > > maintain if you want to do it seriously and with quality standards that > > would actually _satisfy_ the people for whom PyPI is not an option. > > Yeah, I draw two conclusions from the list above: > > - Paul expressed uncertainty about how many people are in his position > of needing a single download with all the batteries included, but > obviously he's not alone. So many people want a > single-box-of-batteries that whole businesses are being built on > fulfilling that need. > > - Currently, our single-box-of-batteries is doing such a lousy job of > solving Paul's problem, that people are building whole businesses on > our failure.
Ouch. Congratulations on neatly using my own arguments to reverse my position :-) Those are both very good points. However... > If Python core wants to be in the business of providing a > single-box-of-batteries that solves Paul's problem, then we need to > rethink how the stdlib works. Or, we could decide we want to leave > that to the distros that are better at it, and focus on our core > strengths like the language and interpreter. But if the stdlib isn't a > single-box-of-batteries, then what is it? IMO, the CPython stdlib is the *reference* library. It's what you can rely on if you want to publish code that "just works" *everywhere*. By "publish" here, I don't particularly mean "distribute code as .py files". I'm thinking much more of StackOverflow answers to "how do I do X in Python" questions, books and tutorials teaching Python, etc etc. It solves my problem, even if other distributions also do - and it has the advantage of being the solution that every other solution is a superset of, so I can say "this works on Python", and know that my statement encompasses "this works on Anaconda", "this works on ActiveState Python", "this works on your distribution's Python", ... - whereas the converse is *not* true. In the environment I work in, various groups and environments may get management buy in (or more often, just management who are willing to not object) for using Python. But they don't always end up using the same version (the data science people use Anaconda, the automation people use the distro Python, the integration guys like me use the python.org Python, ...), so having that common denominator means we can still share code.[1] Steve Dower's explanation of how he sees "splitting up the stdlib" working strikes me as potentially a good way of removing some of the maintenance cost of the stdlib *without* losing the "this is stuff you can expect to be available in every version of Python" aspect of the stdlib. But I'd want to see a more concrete proposal on how it would work, and how we could ensure that (for example) we retain the ability for *every* Python implementation to get data from a URL, even if it's clunky old urllib and the cool distributions with requests only supply it "for compatibility", before I'd be completely sold on the idea. > It's really hard to tell whether specific packages would be good or > bad additions to the stdlib, when we don't even know what the stdlib > is supposed to be. Agreed. But I think you're making things sound worse than they are. We (collectively) probably *do* know what the stdlib is, even if it's not easy to articulate. It's what we confidently expect to be present in any Python environment we sit down at. Much like you'd expect every Linux distribution to include grep, even though newer tools like ag or rg may be much better and what you'd prefer to use in practice. And just like Linux isn't much if all you have is the kernel, so Python is more than just the core language and builtins. Paul [1] Actually, things are currently not that far advanced - the various groups don't interact at all, yet. So focusing on the stdlib for me is a way of preparing for the time when we *do* start sharing, and making that transition relatively effortless and hence an argument in favour of Python rather than demonstrating that "these special-purpose languages just create silos". _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com