Chris Barker wrote:
That doesn't fix the multiple versions problem.
This is a big issue that the core Pythonistas don't seem to be interested in addressing. It's odd, because I think it's a no-brainer that python modules need to be versioned, and there needs to be a way to have multiple versions co-existing and user (that is code) selectable.
Agree completely. I think the reason folk are reluctant to address it isn't that it's an inherently hard problem, but that to solve it now requires either 1. hard political decisions to achieve an easy technical solution (i.e. a solution that's not backwards-compatible with previous versions of Python and would require big changes to the way that module-related tools and community operate), or 2. difficult and costly technical solutions to obtain a politically expedient answer.
Alas, that's weird and wobbly and completely paradoxical world of software for you. Most wonderfully pliable medium in the universe, yet constricted and bound by the inexorable weight of its own history. I suspect the only way to remain free is to be completely unsuccessful - at least without users there's nobody to upset but yourself. Oh well, maybe in Python 3000... ;)
Cheers,
has
p.s. FWIW, I do remember proposing a versioning system in another such conversation - can't recall where, but could probably dig it up if you were really interested. I think it was quite a promising concept worth further investigation: simple and very flexible to use (most schemes are either simple and completely rigid, or supposedly flexible and undesireably complex and over-engineered) - sufficient to cover the majority of user needs out of the box, with the raw underlying APIs still available to anyone who might occasionally need to arrange something special.
--
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