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Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 12:58:05 -0700
Subject: Re: Guido rethinking removal of cmp from sort method
From: geremy condra <debatem1@gmail.com>
To: "Steven D'Aprano" <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info>
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On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 3:21 AM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> wrote:
> On Sun, 03 Apr 2011 16:34:34 +1000, Brian Quinlan wrote:
>
>> On 3 Apr 2011, at 16:22, geremy condra wrote:
>>> I think we're talking at cross purposes. The point I'm making is that
>>> there are lots of issues where popularity as a third party module isn't
>>> really a viable test for whether a feature is sufficiently awesome to
>>> be in core python. As part of determining whether I thought it was
>>> appropriate in this case I essentially just asked myself whether any of
>>> the really good and necessary parts of Python would fail to be
>>> readmitted under similar circumstances, and I think the answer is that
>>> very few would come back in. To me, that indicates that this isn't the
>>> right way to address this issue, although I admit that I lack any solid
>>> proof to base that conclusion on.
>>
>> This has been discussed a few times on python-dev. I think that most
>> developers acknowledge that small-but-high-utility modules would not
>> survive outside of the core because people would simple recreate them
>> rather than investing the time to find, learn and use them.
>
> That's certainly true for pure Python code, but for a C extension, the
> barrier to Do It Yourself will be much higher for most Python coders.

I don't think people will work around it in C. I think they'll
grudgingly accept a slow and kludgy python workaround, and more to the
point I think they would do that with a vast majority of features at
this scale. That's why I say this isn't a good test here- because you
could apply it to a great feature or a terrible feature and with
overwhelming probability have them fail in both cases.

> On the other hand, for a pure Python function or class, you could stick
> it on ActiveState's Python cookbook and get some imperfect measure of
> popularity and/or usefulness from the comments and votes there.

Frankly, I have little trust in this as a measure of popularity. Even
PyPI isn't a great indicator, and the numbers you get off of
ActiveState are almost certain to be way, way noisier.

Geremy Condra