On 4/27/06, Guido van Rossum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 4/26/06, Thomas Wouters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Of course, I only consider *my* reasons to be valid, and mine weren't > > knee-jerk or tool-related. I don't think Python should be going "Oh, what > > you wanted wasn't possible, but I think I know what you wanted, let me do it > > for you", first of all because it's not very Pythonic, and second of all > > because it doesn't lower the learning curve, it just delays some upward > > motion a little (meaning the curve may become steeper, later.) A clear > > warning, on the other hand, can be a helpful nudge towards the 'a-HA' > > moment. > > That still sounds like old-timer reasoning. Long ago we were very > close to defining a package as "a directory" -- with none of this > "must contain __init__.py or another *.py file" nonsense. IIRC the > decision to make __init__.py mandatory faced opposition too, since > people were already doing packages with just directories (which is > quite clean and elegant, and that's also how it was in Java), but I > added it after seeing a few newbies tear out their hair.
OK. After due consideration, I'm happy to accept the change. (Call that +0, it doesn't bother me much personally either way). Although reading the above paragraph, I get the impression that you are saying that __init__.py was originally added to help newbies, and yet you are now saying the exact opposite. I'll leave you to resolve that particular contradiction, though... FWIW, I still have every confidence in your judgement about features. However, I'd have to say that your timing sucks :-) Your initial message read to me as "Quick! I'm about to get lynched here - can I have the OK to shove this change in before a2 goes out?" (OK, 2.5 isn't feature frozen until a3, so maybe you only meant a3, but you clearly wanted a quick response). So it's hard to expect anything other than immediate knee-jerk responses. And those are usually driven by personal experience (implying less consideration of newbie mistakes from this type of audience) and unfocused fear of breakage. Paul. _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
