Re: plpython3

On Jan 13, 2010, at 11:08 AM, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> My argument would be now, what is the benefit of the James Pye version
> over our version. James can you illustrate succinctly why we should be
> supporting a new version?

Doing so, succinctly, is unfortunately difficult.
It is primarily a matter of comparing features, AFAICT. And, furthermore, some features may not be useful to some users.

It exposes additional functionality that should *not* be incrementally developed in plpython as it would break applications. This was the point of trying to move forward with it for Python 3.

Function Modules:
- Does away with the need for GD/SD (more natural Python environment).
- Allows tracebacks (tracebacks are useful, right?) to implemented easily.
- Does *not* expose a bastardized variant of the language by pretending that "modules/script files" can return and yield.
- Helps to promote the Python tenet of being explicit.

Native Typing:
- Provides PG type introspection not available in any other PL, AFAIK.
- Improves efficiency in some cases (conversion must be _explicitly_ called for)
- MD Array support.
- Composites are a sequence and a mapping.

Other features: http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/WIP:plpython3

Aside from function modules and native typing, many of plpython3's features could be implemented incrementally. However, I had a chance to sprint and they are available now in a new implementation. I did so, rather than improving plpython, because I believe that native typing and function modules are very useful.

I'm not sure this fulfills your request, but, hopefully, it's a start.