Catching up on some python-dev email, I was surprised to see that things seem to be barrelling ahead with the adding of ElementTree to Python core without any discussion on XML-SIG. Sidestepping XML-SIG and the proving grounds of PyXML in order to satsify the demand for a Pythonic databinding+API for XML in stdlib seems to be a bit of a raised middle finger to those folks who have worked hard on competing or differently-scoped APIs, each of which deserves a bit more peer review than just a single nomination on python-dev, which seems to be all it took to obtain a blessing for ElementTree. I have nothing against ElementTree, and would like to see more XML processing options in core, but it seems to me like the XML-SIG is being deliberately left out of this process.
Just last month, Guido submitted to XML-SIG a Pythonic XML API that he had been tinkering with.[1] I don't think anyone was really bold enough to tell him what they really thought of it (other than that it is a lot like XIST), but it was admirable that he put it up for peer review rather than just dropping it into stdlib. Perhaps more importantly, it prompted some discussion that more or less acknowledged that these kinds of APIs do seem to be the future of XML in Python, and that we should be thinking about bringing some of them into PyXML and, ultimately, stdlib. But the problem of how to choose from the many options also became immediately apparent.[2] The discussion stalled, but I think it should start up again, in the proper forum, rather than letting the first-mentioned API supplant the dozen+ alternatives that could also be considered as candidates.[3] Sorry to be a sourpuss. Mike -- [1] http://mail.python.org/pipermail/xml-sig/2005-November/011248.html (Guido's very civil proposal and request for peer review) [2] http://mail.python.org/pipermail/xml-sig/2005-November/011252.html (this also summarizes the categories of software/approaches that people are taking to the general problem of working with XML Pythonically) [3] http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2004/10/13/py-xml.html (and there are at least 3 more databinding APIs that have come out since then) _______________________________________________ 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
