On Nov 7, 2017, at 16:15, Chris Barker - NOAA Federal <chris.bar...@noaa.gov> 
wrote:

> Actually, there is a LOT of code out there that expects reference counting. I 
> know a lot of my code does. So if cPython does abandon it some day, there 
> will be issues.

I see this all the time in code reviews:

content = open(some file).read()

I never let that go uncommented.

So while you’re right that CPython is the reference implementation, and few 
people read the language spec, it’s still encombunt on us to point out broken 
code, code with implicit assumptions, and code that is not portable between 
implementations.  Having the reference manual to point to chapter and verse is 
critical to avoid Python just devolving into an ad-hoc language ruled by its 
most popular implementation.  This is something I believe Guido realized early 
on when JPython was first invented, and it was an important distinction that 
Python held, e.g. versus Perl.  I still believe it’s an important principle to 
maintain.

Cheers,
-Barry


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