> david.l...@preisshare.net writes: > > > With respect, it's not a very common use case for a developer to > > say that package needs a python interpretor 'older' than 2.5. > > Of course it is. I don't claim it is the majority of cases out there, > but stable versions of many of the packages I use will specify an > older python (Mailman and Zope both specify a range of Pythons, rarely > including the most recent release, and Bazaar, although it tries to > keep up with Python releases, tends to recommend being conservative, > sticking to release (n-1) for the first few months into release n.) > > And in fact this case is often more the important one. Packages that > depend on having a *recent* version of python will often crash > quickly, before doing permanent damage, when an undefined syntax, > function, or method is invoked, while packages that depend on a quirk > in behavior of an older version will typically silently corrupt data. > > > imho, all that they would know, is that they're using python > > (for example) 2.4 or 2.5 (pick a python version) and they > > know it works pretty well. > > If they want to specify a Python version that works, they may as well > bundle it, and many do. But even in that case the user may want to > know about the dependency. > > BTW, *all* of the Python applications I really care about make a point > of specifying a range of versions they work with (or bundle a > particular version). So in fact many developers do know what versions > work or fail, and often why (and they sometimes even provide > workarounds/patches for adventurers who want to use a Python outside > of the recommended range). > > > It's then up to the user if they want to use it on any other > > version. > > This is often an undesirable posture. From the user's point of view, > the system version of Python may have passed various local tests and > therefore be strongly preferred (for example, requiring far less time > for approval from the security team). This is especially true for > mail or web applications and other applications that must run in a > very hostile environment. Many developers do want to provide this > kind of information to such users. > > I think you should rethink your position on how valid your personal > intuitions are for generalization. You are certainly representative > of a certain important segment of developers, but I don't think you > have a good sense of the very broad class of requirements that other > developers are bringing to the table. >
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