Ok, well, first of all, let me say I'm a contributor to the pymel project, so I'm hardly an unbiased opinion. =P
However, here's my take: First of all, as far as having issues... well, I could go on about how hard we've worked to try and eliminate bugs (we currently have ~ 1450 unit tests, I believe)... and mention that it's been used successfully in major studios... but any software has bugs. However, I would argue that, despite the lack of official support, it's actually easier to fix / find a workaround for a pymel bug than it is for a "normal" autodesk one. First of all, there's the fact that it's OpenSource - all your normal debugging options are open to you, and if you find the root source of the problem, you can fix it yourself. With a regular maya command, it's generally a black box... and even if you know the exact conditions that cause the problem, can reproduce it reliably, and submit a ticket to autodesk... well (assuming the ticket gets noticed and given a high-enough priority to get fixed), simply due to the nature of Maya's corporate release schedule, you'll likely have to wait a while before you see the fix incorporated into Maya. Due to the fact that we're open source, you can access any pymel fixes as soon as we make them. Secondly, consider that while, yes, pymel will inevitably have bugs in it's own code, it ALSO fixes/hides a number of bugs in maya's own code. Plus, it allows you to avoid, ah, 'confusing' elements of maya's python implementation which, while not technically bugs in and of themselves, are likely to introduce bugs of their own. (*cough* MScriptUtil *cough*). Then there's the simple fact that it can drastically reduce the number of lines of code it takes to write a program... and more lines of code mean a higher the probability of a bug. Remember, too, that pymel is NOT an either-or question. It's another tool in your toolset. If you are having problems with pymel (or suspect you are), you can quite easily fall back on the standard maya.cmds, or mix those in with pymel commands. As a final note on the whole 'support' question, while we may not be an 'official' support mechanism, Chad and I try to be as helpful as we can... as do a large number of other folks on this list. As far as pymel going 'poof'... well, of course, nothing is ever guaranteed. But the chances of pymel dying at anytime in the near future are, ah... slim, to say the least. It's very tightly integrated into our pipeline here at Luma, so even if nobody else were using it, we would keep on developing it. And Autodesk is very aware of pymel's existence, and it's user base. We have a fairly good relationship with Autodesk, and they know that doing something which would break pymel is not in their best interest. Anyway, that's my take... I'm sure others have different views. =) - Paul -- http://groups.google.com/group/python_inside_maya
