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What then did you think it relevant to point out that Python does not have a prescriptive document if you didn't think it was somehow useful? Here's another fa
by eesmith 3y ago
What then did you think it relevant to point out that Python does not have a prescriptive document if you didn't think it was somehow useful?
Here's another fact: Python doesn't have its own typeface either. Yet that fact is hardly germane to the thread.
A prescriptive document is a formal specification. The Python Language Reference is a less formal specification. It's still a specification.
It is also not a single document, but then again even a formal specification may incorporate other specifications by reference.
- Kranar 3y agoBecause the original comment was about the appropriateness of writing Python code according to the reference implementation as opposed to writing Python code strictly according to the reference document. Some people are arguing that the reference documentation is in some sense authoritative and the only resource that should be used to define Python's semantics. In particular the issue at hand is whether the GIL is a part of the semantics of a Python program. As my position is that the CPython implementation is the reference implementation for Python and as the GIL is an integral part of that implementation, then the GIL does form a part of Python's semantics regardless of whether the reference documentation mentions it or not. The Python reference documentation is not a specification and it's not intended to be one.