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

mail.python.org

571–580 of 764 posts

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

#571

I don't know if it's just me, but if you read the forums and bug reports related to open source projects, it feels like programmers today are a really entitled lot. The tone that people take when filing bug reports for what is basically free software is reprehensible. People are doing work for FREE to benefit you, and you take a tone with them like you are a prince and they are your royal goblet holders? Who taught t…

I think what you're saying is true in the case of someone just throwing up some code they wrote online without any plan of supporting or developing it further. But once you call it an open-source project, and you have docs and a roadmap and an issues page and stuff, you're making an implicit contract with people who use it that it will do a reasonable job of solving the problem it claims to solve. The user is choosin…

Most open-source licenses explicitly say that the software is provided as-is, and there is no warranty, express or implied, nor any obligation to continue to provide support or for it even to work.

https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html

The user is indeed choosing to use it over other alternatives; they are choosing to use it, and should make that choice on the basis of their own evaluation of the functionality and stability of the library.

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

#572
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 :-(

Outrageous. I’m offended, because I see open source as a great force for change, and I find your remarks belittling.

Denizens... please. I was clearly facetious.

Too deadpan.

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

#573
post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what you're saying is true in the case of someone just throwing up some code they wrote online without any plan of supporting or developing it further. But once you call it an open-source project, and you have docs and a roadmap and an issues page and stuff, you're making an implicit contract with people who use it that it will do a reasonable job of solving the problem it claims to solve. The user is choosin…

So, we insist open-source software developers to keep their "implicit contract", but we (as society) allow companies to buy companies that develop and maintain open-source to close-source it or just close the entire establishment? Without legal consequences.

Companies that shut down open-source dev teams are at least usually honest that that's what they're doing at the time that they do it. Open-source projects that actively evangelise—by extolling their community and documentation, presenting polished websites, in-app screenshots and shiny video demonstrations—then fail to make an adequate effort to serve and relate to the userbase the project has intentionally drummed up are not being similarly honest. If you don't want to serve the users, quit or turn off the evangelisation.

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

#575

I don't know if it's just me, but if you read the forums and bug reports related to open source projects, it feels like programmers today are a really entitled lot. The tone that people take when filing bug reports for what is basically free software is reprehensible. People are doing work for FREE to benefit you, and you take a tone with them like you are a prince and they are your royal goblet holders? Who taught t…

I lead an open source effort which is fairly large in a relatively niche field. While most users are awesome, it never ceases to amaze me how rude some people can be. Because something isn't exactly the way they want it we're the worst, dumbest people in the world. Hey I'm happy to refund the money you spend purchasing my product.

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

#576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

Try Ruby.

Aw, alright then.

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

#577
post #454
post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the majority of cases, they are getting paid to code it (by some company, organization, etc). And they benefit from the popularity of the the software. So I don't think I need to see myself as a charity case or adopt a please please please attitude with them.

I maintain a number of open source projects for Google. So yes I am paid to do it and yes the company benefits from it. That said, it doesn't mean that developers who use it can take an entitled stance and expect to get anywhere. I get so many bug reports like "This sux and you have to fix it!!!!" and even when I wake up on the right side of the bed, there's nothing I can do with those. A calm discussion of what the…

In your case, it only means you owe Google, but not the other user.

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

#578
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still puzzled to why would a compiler allow assignment in an explicit conditional (outside of loop syntax). It's like a baked-in blindspot that most people just want to ignore for some reason. Some languages actually guard against this well enough (eg Kotlin) and say "don't". Even with guards in place, it's not all that complicated to work around in the edge cases where you might want to do it.

Because assignment is an expression. It has nothing specifically to do with the position being a conditional. Conditionals need an expression, and assignment fits the bill, so it works.

The other partial fix is to stop allowing truthy conditionals. Only allow Boolean values and the only time you it wrong is when you’re assigning to booleans.

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

#579
post #559
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Larry Page’s first crawler was in Java, and Scott Hassan rewrote it in Python. From https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/07/valley-of-genius-exc... : > Scott Hassan: In the fall of ’95, for some reason, I started hanging out with Larry in his office. . . . At the time, Larry was trying to download a hundred pages simultaneously. And I was fixing some of the bugs that he was having with Java itself, and this went…

32,000 pages simultaneously - in 1995? Async has only recently been added to Python, no?

Using select: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Select_(Unix)

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

#580
post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Guido wasn't himself while writing the PEP572, I ask for a new vote about the PEP572. I vote against it, the PEP572 should not be implemented. There is really nothing in the e-mail that indicates that. I can only imagine the message it would send to recall the PEP. I guess it would confirm his decision in a most callous way.

Some people on Internet are reconsidering a second vote for the Brexit, while that PEP didn't even have a vote at all, given it was a dictatorship so far. Guido wrote the principles of Python, the principles should outlive his reign. :-)

> Some people on Internet are reconsidering a second vote for the Brexit

That really isn't a fair comparison. This is about one person, not two opposing groups.

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