[ZODB-Dev] ZODB 3.3 and pickle protocol 2?

[Eric Lambart]

Hello,
I just subscribed to the list after browsing the archives from the past
six months.

I am developing an OODB management system for a client, and we have
decided that ZODB and ZEO (and IndexedCatalog--hi Christian) are
probably the best platform upon which to build our software.

We haven't yet created anything but test data storages using ZODB 3.2.x,
and I get the impression that life will be simpler if we start with 3.3
--providing of course that we and/or Christian/Johan/et al can get
IndexedCatalog tweaked to work with 3.3.

My understanding is that once IC is divorced from ExtensionClass, the
IndexedObjects can/will be new-style Python classes.

This leads to my questions that are relevant to this list.

I've read PEP 307 (several times!) and am very intrigued by the apparent
disk storage savings to be gained by using the new pickle protocol (2).
I can see that protocol 1 (which I know previously simply meant
bin=True) is hard-coded throughout ZODB.

So here's what I'm wondering:
a) Are there are any plans to move to protocol 2 for ZODB, or better
yet, a non-hard-coded protocol value that can be chosen programatically?

b) Is there any reason why using the newer pickle protocol would NOT
make any significant difference (improvement!) in data storage using
ZODB?

c) Assuming there would be some advantage to these changes, if we were
to make such changes to ZODB (which seem far easier at this point than
making the changes to IC would be), are they likely to be accepted as
patches to the ZODB codebase?

Eric