[lxml-dev] should lxml.html have the same API as lxml.etree?

[Stefan Behnel]

Hi,

jholg at gmx.de wrote:
> Mirroring the etree API completely in objectify might make the incautious 
> user think that these modules can be used completely interchangeable, while
> they are not.
> 
> And the difference are subtle, e.g. the indexing behaviour (sibling access 
> in objectify, children access in etree), and will not necessarily produce
> easily detectable errors.
> 
> So for an lxml.objectify that exposes a full etree-API, it should be 
> stated very prominently that you can't just take your existing etree worker
> code and start using objectify instead.

That's not really something I'm worried about. I think it's clear from the
docs (and intuitively from etree and objectify being separate modules) that
they are not interchangeable.

I think the real question is: should users need to import etree, when what
they actually work with is objectify or lxml.html? And I think duplicating the
module content and having to import only one module/package makes it even
clearer that they /have/ separate APIs than the current mix of "partly etree,
partly objectify" can. It allows users to stay inside the world of one tool,
without even having to think about the differences to another tool that they
do not care about (or at least should not have to).

Stefan