On Sun, Apr 4, 2021 at 6:20 PM Paul Moore <p.f.mo...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Sun, 4 Apr 2021 at 01:37, Brandt Bucher <brandtbuc...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > Mark Shannon said: > > > I was relying on the "reference" implementation, which is also in the PEP. > > > > Can you please stop putting scare quotes around "reference implementation"? > > Agreed - apart from the implication Brandt noted, it's also > misleading. The code is in Python 3.10, so the correct term is "the > implementation" (or if you want to be picky, "the CPython > implementation"). To me, the term "reference implementation" implies > "for reference, not yet released". >
Normally, the term "reference implementation" means "the basis implementation that everything else is compared against". For instance, a compression algorithm might be published as a mathematical document, with a reference implementation in some language. It's then possible to create a new implementation in some other language, or more optimized, or whatever else; but to know whether it's giving the correct results, you compare its output to the output of the reference implementation. CPython is the reference implementation for the Python language. It's possible to have a discrepancy between the standard and the implementation, but it's still the reference implementation (just occasionally a buggy one). In this case, I believe that the term "reference implementation" is strictly accurate, and concur with Brandt's request to not discredit it by implying that it's only purporting to be one. ChrisA _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list -- python-dev@python.org To unsubscribe send an email to python-dev-le...@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-dev.python.org/ Message archived at https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-dev@python.org/message/C5ZWYROKGA4FJWOTCSBYLFDRUWA5FAZO/ Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
