PEP praise (was RE: [Python-Dev] Lockstep iteration - eureka!)

[Tim Peters]

[Ka-Ping Yee]
> ...
> Surely a PEP isn't required for a couple of built-in functions that
> are simple and well understood?  You can just call thumbs-up or
> thumbs-down and be done with it.

Only half of that is true, and even then only partially:  if the verdict is
thumbs-up, *almost* cool, except that newcomers delight in pestering "but
how come it wasn't done *my* way instead?".  You did a bit of that yourself
in your day, you know <wink>.  We're hoping the stream of newcomers never
ends, but the group of old-timers willing and able to take an hour or two to
explain the past in detail is actually dwindling (heck, you can count the
Python-Dev members chipping in on Python-Help with a couple of fingers, and
if anything fewer still active on c.l.py).

If it's thumbs-down, in the absence of a PEP it's much worse:  it will just
come back again, and again, and again, and again.  The sheer repetition in
these endlessly recycled arguments all but guarantees that most old-timers
ignore these threads completely.

A prime purpose of the PEPs is to be the community's collective memory, pro
or con, so I don't have to be <wink>.  You surely can't believe this is the
first time these particular functions have been pushed for core adoption!?
If not, why do we need to have the same arguments all over again?  It's not
because we're assholes, and neither because there's anything truly new here,
it's simply because a mailing list has no coherent memory.

Not so much as a comma gets changed in an ANSI or ISO std without an
elaborate pile of proposal paperwork and formal reviews.  PEPs are a very
lightweight mechanism compared to that.  And it would take you less time to
write a PEP for this than I alone spent reading the 21 msgs waiting for me
in this thread today.  Multiply the savings by billions <wink>.

world-domination-has-some-scary-aspects-ly y'rs  - tim