[Python-Dev] XXX do we need a new policy?

[Guido van Rossum]

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 3:39 PM, Benjamin Peterson
<musiccomposition at gmail.com> wrote:
> Grepping through Python's sources tells me that we have over 2,000
> "XXX" comments. The thing that irks me about them is that the have a
> very slow rate of being resolved, since they usually act more as
> "notes to self" rather than easily attainable tasks.
>
> So, I propose that we adopt a policy similar to Twisted's: All "XXX"
> comments must have an issue in the tracker and an accompanying link
> with the source code. That way we'll have a forum for discussing the
> changes and deciding whether they are reasonable enough to
> implemented.

That seems excessively draconian. Even at Google we don't have a rule
like that, and we're sure big on process and interlinked tools. If you
want to, you could add a different magic keyword, but personally, I
don't see XXX comments necessarily as "to be resolved" -- merely as
flags for someone perusing the code looking to change it or digging
for the cause of some problem to pay special attention.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)