[IPython-dev] Poll on Deprecating %load_ext

[Maximilian Albert]

2015-07-10 5:40 GMT+01:00 Fernando Perez <fperez.net at gmail.com>:

> We seem to have some reasonable consensus on moving forward here, [...]
>
> My vote is to move forward with merging.
>

This is not a comment on the original question but rather a minor word of
caution regarding the process of discussion.

I think it's absolutely great that there is a concerted effort from the
core team to involve the wider community and seek feedback on these kinds
of questions. As numerous examples have shown in the past, users often
extend (or even bend) the existing infrastructure in interesting/unexpected
ways, and it's essential to understand these before making changes like
this.

However, I'd like to point out that it's barely been 16 hours since
Matthias' first email in this thread, so I'm almost certain that not
everybody who has an opinion on this has even read all the emails yet). As
we saw in the discussion about deleting gitter chatrooms, proceeding too
quickly can lead to frustration even for core developers who continuously
monitor this mailing list if they feel they didn't have a chance to respond
in time.

I was wondering whether it's worth having some sort of 'protocol' which
prescribes certain minimum timeframe for these kinds of discussion and
ensures that everyone interested has had a chance to state there opinion on
it? It would be a shame to alienate users just because they miss a
discussion that only lasted for a few hours. We might not even find out
about it because they may just silently turn away from the community
without speaking up.

I have no feeling for what a reasonable timeframe would be, though (maybe
2-3 days? - might be worth asking the community about it :-P). I can also
see how keeping discussions open for longer may lead to an additional
burden for the developers who need to keep track of open issues. What does
everyone think? If it's worth discussing then I'm happy to re-send this
email in a separate thread so that it's not buried where people are likely
to miss it.

Cheers,
Max
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