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[Python-Dev] Negative times behaviour in itertools.repeat for Python maintenance releases (2.7, 3.3 and maybe 3.4)

Ethan Furman ethan at stoneleaf.us
Wed Jan 29 06:18:37 CET 2014 
On 01/28/2014 06:50 PM, Larry Hastings wrote:
>
> See the recent discussion "Deprecation policy" right here in python-dev for a cogent discussion on this issue.  I agree
> with Raymond's view, posted on 1/25:
>
>     * A good use for deprecations is for features that were flat-out misdesigned
>     and prone to error.  For those, there is nothing wrong with deprecating them
>     right away.  Once deprecated though, there doesn't need to be a rush to
>     actually remove it -- that just makes it harder for people with currently
>     working code to upgrade to newer versions of Python.
>
>     * When I became a core developer well over a decade ago, I was a little
>     deprecation happy (old stuff must go, keep everything nice and clean, etc).
>     What I learned though is that deprecations are very hard on users and that
>     the purported benefits usually aren't really important.

I also agree with this view.


> I think the "times behaves differently when passed by name versus passed by position" behavior falls exactly into this
> category, and its advice on how to handle it is sound.

I don't agree with this.  This is a bug.  Somebody going through (for example) a code review and making minor changes so 
the code is more readable shouldn't have to be afraid that [inserting | removing] the keyword in the function call is 
going to *drastically* [1] change the behavior.  I understand the need for a cycle of deprecation [2], but not fixing it 
in 3.5 is folly.

--
~Ethan~

[1] or change the behavior *at all*, for that matter

[2] speaking of deprecations, are all the 3.1, 3.2, etc., etc., deprecations being added to 2.7?
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