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

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

#171

Post by keymone »

jimmaswell wrote: post #140
chimeracoder wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Python 3 breakage and async turned out to be prescient, fantastic decisions. The jury is still out on the Python 3 decision, to be honest. Heck, Python 2 is still officially supported until 2020. Python 3 adoption is increasing, but the instability and breakage that it introduced caused a lot of knock-on effects throughout the Python community that held it back and hindered its adoption and mindshare. It'll take a…

I'll probably never switch for personal use. The print statement change is intolerable to me. It would have cost them nothing to just leave the old syntax in. It's supposed to be a quick and convenient scripting language and they're actively working to make it more verbose and less convenient. I also still don't like not being able to use "string" objects as dumb byte containers, like I do with an IRC bot that doesn'…

Syntax regularity is infinitely more important than scripting convenience.

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

#172

Post by petters »

adamnemecek wrote: post #31

Even though I write python only if it’s going to be like 200 loc tops, it’s insane how gracefully the language has aged. It came out in 91, thus predating for example Java. Fun fact, I believe the very first google scraper was written in it. At the same time I can’t wait for the next language to replace it.

Wasn't the first Google scraper written in Java? I saw an old Usenet post by Page from about 1997 asking about user agents in Java.

Perhaps that was the second scraper.

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

#173

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

sjm-lbm wrote: post #15
bla2 wrote: post #5

> I don't ever want to have to fight so hard for a PEP and find that so many people despise my decisions. Leading a large open source project must be terrible in this age of constant outrage :-(

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

Archive:

http://archive.is/XYXoi

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

#174

Post by spease »

robaato wrote: post #142
coryfklein wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Shades of: It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope. Pope John XXIII

“But, Doctor, I am Pagliacci!”

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

#175

Post by Tehnix »

bluecalm wrote: post #146
js2 wrote: post #27

Background ("PEP 572 and decision-making in Python"): https://lwn.net/Articles/757713/

Well, when he is dealing with arguments as silly as "but we will confuse = with ==) it's not a surprise he is tired and had enough. I just wish he had pushed through C style assignment before retiring. New syntax is ugly and introduces a new operator which basically does the same thing. When I've seen this PEP for the first time I thought he lost his touch after so many fantastic design decisions throughout the years…

> Well, when he is dealing with arguments as silly as "but we will confuse = with ==)...

You clearly never had exposure to a PHP codebase. If people can trip up, people will trip up.

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

#176

Post by Cofike »

deckarep wrote: post #33
hiccuphippo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he is still the BDFL, he's just on permanent vacation.

Have you tried reaching software engineers on vacation? “Sorry I’ll be camping on some rock on Mars where I’ll have spotty internet access so....”

Yeah vacation isn't work time

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

#177

Post by dragontamer »

zbyte64 wrote: post #133
_wmd wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology cannot solve social problems

Try solving social problems without technology.

The fundamentals of Robert's Rules are lost upon many people today. The creation of clubs and secret societies was an art of the late 1800s.

Today, people over-leverage technology and under-leverage the fundamentals of club-building. Roberts Rules are about creating a protocol where people each take turns to talk, under a set of rules that gives everyone a chance to voice their opinions... but still allows progress and ultimately a decision to be made.

That's the important part: how to achieve consensus among a group of people. The ideas of democracy, discussion, minority votes, and rules of how to conduct the discussion are all important.

Some groups still use Robert's rules, but many people don't even understand what a deliberative body is meant to do. (IE: most people don't understand Congress's role in society anymore). Its basically been replaced by meme culture and Reddit moderators creating serfdoms and/or dictatorships.

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

#178

Post by LyndsySimon »

swyx wrote: post #162
LyndsySimon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we'll try something like a triumvirate? As best I can tell there are basically three areas where Python is dominant: web, data science, and academia. A single leader for each of those spheres could form a council where BDFL-level decisions could be made by fiat. Each community could then form whatever organization they felt necessary to choose who to send to the triumvirate. As as check on the power of the triu…

you're missing a body that can decide in case of implementation disputes over the other two. we could even compare it to a court. since python is so huge, we would have several levels for triaging and appeals. and the top one would reign supreme.

This would be the that body - it would be the final arbiter of what gets approved. The Tribune of the Plebs would not be able to approve anything at all, but would be able to unilaterally refuse to allow changes to be made.

The UN Security Council is somewhat similar in that respect, though comprised of more members. New matters are approved by majority vote, but the five permanent members can veto anything that gets approved.

My proposal is somewhat tongue in cheek, hence the names from the Roman Republic - but I do think the idea is sound.

An alternate, simpler implementation would be to simply require that all changes be unanimous. I like the idea of a Tribune of the Plebs though because it gives a second means of a voice should a sizable minority of members of the sub-communities strongly disagree with the direction of their representatives.

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

#180

Post by Dayshine »

Waterluvian wrote: post #56
jcelerier wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem with the C-style of assignments is that it leads to this classic error: if(x = 0) {...} yeah, if you code on 20 years old compilers with no warnings. GCC 4.1 warns about this (with -Wall) and Clang 3.4 warns about this too, without any warning flag.

I think that having strong opinions on how others should be developing software is how communities become toxic like this. "Shooting yourself in the foot is your fault for not using a linter that detects accidental misuse of assignment!"

Linter?

You mean compiler right? The compiler should be warning for things like this, not relying on 3rd party tools.

So, yes, if you're using a custom compiler, you kinda are to blame for shooting yourself in the foot. Just use the official binaries!

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