On Fri, Jan 23, 2009 at 2:57 AM, Giovanni Bajo <ra...@develer.com> wrote: > I miss to understand why many Python developers are so fierce in trying > to push the idea of cross-python compatibility (which is something that > does simply *not* exist in real world for applications) or to warn about > rainy days in the future when this would stop working in CPython. I > would strongly prefer that CPython would settle on (= document) using > reference counting and immediate destruction so that people can stop > making their everyday code more complex with no benefit. You will be > losing no more than an open door that nobody has entered in 20 years, > and people would only benefit from it.
You are so very wrong, my son. CPython's implementation strategy *will* evolve. Several groups are hard at work trying to make a faster Python interpreter, and when they succeed, everyone, including you, will want to use their version (or their version may simply *be* the new CPython). Plus, you'd be surprised how many people might want to port existing code (and that may include code that uses C extensions, many of which are also ported) to Jython or IronPython. Your mistake sounds more like "nobody will ever want to run this on Windows, so I won't have to use the os.path module" and other short-sighted ideas. While you may be right in the short run, it may also be the death penalty for a piece of genius code that is found to be unportable. And, by the way, "for line in open(filename): ..." will continue to work. It may just not close the file right away. This is a forgivable sin in a small program that opens a few files only. It only becomes a program when this is itself inside a loop that loops over many filenames -- you could run out of file descriptors. -- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) _______________________________________________ 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
