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“I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

mail.python.org

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Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#81

Post by 21 »

sametmax wrote: post #69
symmitchry wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little confused though, by his feelings here. Why did he feel the need to "fight so hard for a PEP" if it was so controversial, and everyone was outraged? I do understand people's points about "the age of outrage" and "internet 2018" but still: the PEP wasn't generally accepted as being a fantastic improvement, so why did he feel the need to fight so hard for it?

That's the very point of a bdfl : it assumes he knows better than others. Debating is for insight and cortesy, not mandatory.

But the B is for Benevolent. When a huge part of the community is against, does that B still stands?

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#83

Post by VikingCoder »

I've begged GitHub to institute forms of government for repos.

For X action to happen, Y percent of the pool of people in the Z list need to approve it.

Membership of the Z list is granted when W percent of the T pool approve it.

Modifying the rules of government of this repo can only happen when L percent of the R pool approve it.

And on and on...

I could imagine a city or state government actually having its laws encoded in Github, and Github itself enforces the governmental system of checks and balances. Congress. Senate. President. Veto. Overriding a Veto. Laws of succession. Elections. On and on.

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#84

Post by sametmax »

As a personnal note, you could feel that guido was already in this mood for a while from the tone of the last year tickets and mails.

It's amazing he managed to not explode at somebody. I know i would have if our roles had been reversed in some exchanges we had.

Good writers, comedians or directors know when to quit at the top their carreer.

I think he is quitting before the situation was too taxing and that is wise and courageous. Espacially since it's been more than 2 decades of service.

Plus he is leaving his baby.

That's an amazing move.

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#85

Post by theandrewbailey »

Python was my first programming language, ~15 years ago. The bracket- and semicolon-free syntax is beautiful and approachable to this day. Python is my go-to for writing data format conversion scripts. I wrote a random sentence generator in Python 10 years ago that gave me and my friends hours of entertainment.

Thanks, Guido, for the good times!

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#86

Post by krylon »

Y_Y wrote: post #42
sjm-lbm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's PHP and not Python, but every time I read something like this from a major open source figure, I always think of this old PHP mailing list thread: https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=50696

That's a good read. I feel like the "customer is always right" mentality does quite a bit of harm to OSS support. Also reminds me of that dev (who I can't seem to search up) who had their email printed as part of a open-source software license in a car manual and would get ridiculous email from people who had car trouble.

OTOH, way back, when I had a TV receiver card by Hauppage, and a new Linux kernel broke something, I posted a description of my troubles on Usenet, and within 24 hours, the person who had written the Video4Linux subsystem replied asking for more details (which I gladly provided), and a few days later, the bug was fixed.

That, I think, was the most awesome "customer support" experience of my life. I did make a point of being polite about it, however, which I consider a ground rule for dealing with people, especially if I want something from them.

But it was so awesome to post to a random usenet group about a driver problem and have the person who wrote the driver personally approach you for details. You don't get that with Windows, for sure. ;-)

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#87

Post by fwdpropaganda »

Analemma_ wrote: post #18
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #4

What was the issue that was evidently so contentious that it made him wish to step down?

(a := b) rather than a = b Naturally people went to the barricades for it, in a classic example of bikeshedding and Wadler's Law (programmers will fight to the death over trivial syntax disagreements and just shrug at profound changes to semantics and architecture)

Damn dude...

I'm sick and tired of writing stuff like

m = f( )

if m:

    # do stuff with m
Trivial as it may be, I for one welcome this.

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#88

Post by [deleted] »

coryfklein wrote: post #46
sjm-lbm wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's PHP and not Python, but every time I read something like this from a major open source figure, I always think of this old PHP mailing list thread: https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=50696

OMG there are some real gems in that thread. > Escalate? Oh how I wish I had someone to escalate to. - rasmus@php.net > After carefully reviewing this bug report with our board of directors on 4chan, we have come to the conclusion that your "rusty C skills" should be enough to fix the issue. I would therefore like to remind you that rasmus@php.net is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasmus_lerdorf

[deleted]

Re: “I'm basically giving myself a permanent vacation from being BDFL”

#89

Post by kdkeodoid »

VikingCoder wrote: post #83

I've begged GitHub to institute forms of government for repos. For X action to happen, Y percent of the pool of people in the Z list need to approve it. Membership of the Z list is granted when W percent of the T pool approve it. Modifying the rules of government of this repo can only happen when L percent of the R pool approve it. And on and on... I could imagine a city or state government actually having its laws e…

All hail our new Microsoft overlords!
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