Re:CLI tools hidden in the Python standard library
by dragonwriter on Thursday June 29, 2023 @01:32PM
(#36523702)
There are two strong reasons for that:
(1) Not letting little used modules that pose maintenance problems drive up the cost of maintaining Python, and
(2) Not forcing actively used, actively developed modules to be limited to the core language upgrade cadence (and not forcing users to upgrade the language to get upgrades to the modules.)
Ruby I think has a decent approach to this (particularly, one that deals with #2 better than just evicting things entirely from the standard distribution) with “Gemification” of the standard library, where most things that are moved out of the standard library aren’t moved out of the standard distribution, but into a set of gems distributed with the standard distribution but which can be upgraded independently.
(1) Not letting little used modules that pose maintenance problems drive up the cost of maintaining Python, and
(2) Not forcing actively used, actively developed modules to be limited to the core language upgrade cadence (and not forcing users to upgrade the language to get upgrades to the modules.)
Ruby I think has a decent approach to this (particularly, one that deals with #2 better than just evicting things entirely from the standard distribution) with “Gemification” of the standard library, where most things that are moved out of the standard library aren’t moved out of the standard distribution, but into a set of gems distributed with the standard distribution but which can be upgraded independently.