Re: [gentoo-dev] Fwd: [Python-Dev] Move support of legacy platforms/architectures outside Python

[Michał Górny]

On Sun, 2021-02-21 at 20:32 -0500, Joshua Kinard wrote:
> On 2/21/2021 08:01, Michał Górny wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > FYI, a few member of Python upstream are continuing their crusade
> > against minor architectures not supported by Rust.  This time, they're
> > discussing actively removing support for platforms they don't officially
> > support, and requiring people to maintain external patches forever.
>
> In case I missed something, what is the intersection here between Rust and
> Python?  Is it just the Python devs taking a page out of Rust's guidebook on
> platform/arch support, or is there some change coming down the road, like
> where Python will be re-written in Rust?

It's the context/timing.  Cryptography starts being rewritten in Rust. 
I report a bug that this breaks platforms not supported by Rust [1]. 
Suddenly a few core Python developers appear and applaud the effort,
indicating that Python does not support these arches.

In middle of this, one of the Python devs proposes removing s390
support.  The patch [2] does not remove any real code that could burden
developers -- it just demolishes some places to break the support.
The request receives negative feedback.

So now we have suddenly the crusade against all 'unsupported'
architectures, to justify the crusade.

I don't know whether Python will actually be rewritten in Rust or start
depending on Rust packages but it's not impossible.  However, it's
pretty clear that the whole discussion was triggered by the Rust rewrite
of cryptography.

As for your other comments, I can't really comment on them.

[1] https://github.com/pyca/cryptography/issues/5771
[2] https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/24534
[3] https://bugs.python.org/issue43179

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny