[Zope-Checkins] CVS: Zope27/lib/python/TAL - TALInterpreter.py:1.68.26.2

[Guido van Rossum]

> > What on earth is "monkey-patching"?  From the patch, it looks like you
> > mean "overriding a method."
> 
> Well, that's pretty much it -- replacing a function or class or
> something in an already-loaded module.  Most (all?) hotfixes use
> this mechanism.

Um, that's not the same.  The word "overriding" implies "in a
subclass".  You're talking about patching a method in an *existing*
class.  The difference is that the latter affects all users of the
class.  For urgent bugfixes I can understand this technique.  But
Florent's change suggests that this is a *feature* in this case.  I
find that hard to swallow as a general mechanism, and because his
checkin comments gave not additional motivation or a pointer to an
accepted decision, I question the validity of his checkin, *unless* he
meant overriding the method in a subclass (which is goodness).

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)