[Python-Dev] Re: Optimization of the Year

[Terry Reedy]

"Guido van Rossum" <guido at python.org> wrote in message
news:200402101540.i1AFeSR31177 at c-24-5-183-134.client.comcast.net...
> Disagree.  The public API documentation has never permitted modifying
> ob_item and ob_size directly.  It would be breaking the abstraction.

That answers my previous question.

> If in 3rd party code, that code is simply wrong.
>
> If indeed such 3rd party code exists, and we expect we can't get it
> all fixed before 2.4 is released, the tracked_item hack can be used as
> a temporary measure to hunt down all those 3rd party extensions that
> break the abstraction.  I propose to issue a warning when it is
> discovered that ob_item != tracked_item.  Then in 2.5 we can remove
> the tracked_item feature.

Why not publish warning/announcement now (clp, clpa, and site), put warning
code in alpha/beta and possibly c1, and remove in c2 and 2.4 final?  You
regularly make changes at or visible from the Python level with less
accomodation than this.  (Examples: byte code changes; deletion of
methods() and members() methods in favor of uniform dir() in 2.2).

Terry J. Reedy