On Dec 4, 2007 7:55 AM, Jim Jewett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 12/3/07, Guido van Rossum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Dec 3, 2007 12:12 PM, "Martin v. Löwis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >> Sure. However, you could also use > > > >> _testcapi.PY_SSIZE_T_MAX, or > > > >> ctypes.sizeof(ctypes.py_object). > > > > > Much less intuitive though. > > > > Actually, I find the ctypes version a more direct answer to the > > > question "what is the address space?". > > (1) Is there a valid use case for this that needs to be supported > with the "same code" across distributions before ctypes? > > (2) Is "without ctypes" still a supported build configuration, > because of the crash-risks? More narrowly, is can we assume that they > don't need the exact size/address unless they're doing extensions that > have at least as much risk as ctypes? > > > It's just that I didn't even know about it -- and I suspect most users > > would never think of it. OTOH most users will expect sys.maxint to > > be 2**63-1 on a 64-bit machine (never mind that they are wrong for > > Win64 :-). > > I think anyone expecting a particular number would also expect that > integers larger are in some way special. Whether they need to use > doubles (as in C) or they fail entirely, or they just slow down > (python 2.x) ... they should be special. > > Maybe sys.maxint should just be removed entirely. > > Reasons to keep it: > It is useful information, even it isn't quite what the naive expect. > It serves as a "really big integer". > > Reasons to drop it: > Attractive nuisance that isn't quite correct. > > > I would remove the optimizations for now; we should benchmark > > again later in the 3.0 beta release cycle. In general I'm all for > > removing clutter that was once added in the hope of speeding > > things up; for 3.0 my main priority is correctness. > > When this happens, what should be left behind? > > (a) Nothing -- just go to subversion > (b) A comment that this was optimized in the past > (c) A note in some sort of "optimiation ideas" readme > > -jJ >
definitely (a) -- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) _______________________________________________ Python-3000 mailing list Python-3000@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-3000 Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-3000/archive%40mail-archive.com
