Deprecations via warnings don't work for Python libraries
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Deprecations via warnings don't work for Python libraries
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Re: Deprecations via warnings don't work for Python libraries
#2Deprecations via warnings don't reliably work anywhere, in general.
If you are a good developer, you'll have extensive unit test coverage and CI. You never see the unit test output (unless they fail) - so warnings go unnoticed.
If you are a bad developer, you have no idea what you are doing and you ignore all warnings unless program crashes.
Re: Deprecations via warnings don't work for Python libraries
#3Deprecations via warnings don't reliably work anywhere, in general. If you are a good developer, you'll have extensive unit test coverage and CI. You never see the unit test output (unless they fail) - so warnings go unnoticed. If you are a bad developer, you have no idea what you are doing and you ignore all warnings unless program crashes.
Author here! Agreed that are different levels of "engaged" from users, which is okay. The concerning part of this finding is that even dependent users that I know to be highly engaged didn't respond to the deprecation warnings, so they're not working for even the most engaged users.
Re: Deprecations via warnings don't work for Python libraries
#4Deprecations via warnings don't reliably work anywhere, in general. If you are a good developer, you'll have extensive unit test coverage and CI. You never see the unit test output (unless they fail) - so warnings go unnoticed. If you are a bad developer, you have no idea what you are doing and you ignore all warnings unless program crashes.
Why is it that CI tools don't make warnings visible? Why are they ignored by default in the first place? Seems like that should be a rather high priority.
Re: Deprecations via warnings don't work for Python libraries
#5Deprecations via warnings don't reliably work anywhere, in general. If you are a good developer, you'll have extensive unit test coverage and CI. You never see the unit test output (unless they fail) - so warnings go unnoticed. If you are a bad developer, you have no idea what you are doing and you ignore all warnings unless program crashes.
You can turn warnings into errors with the `-Werror` option. I personally use that in CI runs, along with the `-X dev` option to enable additional runtime checks. Though that wont solve the author's problem, since most Python devs don't use either of those options
Re: Deprecations via warnings don't work for Python libraries
#6>We ended up adding the APIs back and creating a hurried release to fix the issue.
So it was entirely possible to keep the software working with these. Why change/remove them in the first place? Is the benefit of of the new abstraction greater than the downside of requiring everyone using the software to re-write theirs?
Re: Deprecations via warnings don't work for Python libraries
#7Wait, does urlib not use semvar? Don't remove APIs on minor releases people. A major release doesn't have to be a problem or a major redesign, you can do major release 400 for all I care, just don't break things on minor releases.
Lots of things not using semvar that I always just assumed did.
Re: Deprecations via warnings don't work for Python libraries
#8Wait, does urlib not use semvar? Don't remove APIs on minor releases people. A major release doesn't have to be a problem or a major redesign, you can do major release 400 for all I care, just don't break things on minor releases. Lots of things not using semvar that I always just assumed did.
+1
The industry has a solution for the exact problem the urllib is having (semver). Urllib just actively refuses to use it.
Re: Deprecations via warnings don't work for Python libraries
#9Deprecations via warnings don't reliably work anywhere, in general. If you are a good developer, you'll have extensive unit test coverage and CI. You never see the unit test output (unless they fail) - so warnings go unnoticed. If you are a bad developer, you have no idea what you are doing and you ignore all warnings unless program crashes.
Why is it that CI tools don't make warnings visible? Why are they ignored by default in the first place? Seems like that should be a rather high priority.
Most of the time they don't matter and aren't an immediate problem.
The Business doesn't care about warnings, they want working software NOW.
Re: Deprecations via warnings don't work for Python libraries
#10Wait, does urlib not use semvar? Don't remove APIs on minor releases people. A major release doesn't have to be a problem or a major redesign, you can do major release 400 for all I care, just don't break things on minor releases. Lots of things not using semvar that I always just assumed did.
Python itself doesn't use semver.