Comment 4 for bug 626680

I agree that we want to rethink the way we do batching for the API, quite possibly doing away with it entirely. This is something that has already gone on my list for consideration for the "usability" effort after Leonard finishes work on the desktop client stuff.

We should implement it with what Stuart is describing.

Beyond performance, though, my concern with the batching approach in launchpadlib is that it makes Python programmers expect that they are working with a normal sequence, when they are not. This can lead to surprises, and to code that has to handle odd exceptions, like a len not being the same as the number of objects in an iteration, or members appearing twice, or not at all. I think we can and should have a Python API that clearly sets expectations for webservice interactions. Simply disabling collection iteration may be the answer.

I don't think it will be reasonable to allow the entirety of a large collection like bugs to be returned at once.

This is also related to your first comment in bug 251284, Robert.