[Python-Dev] Breaking undocumented API

[Nick Coghlan]

2010/11/17 Michael Foord <fuzzyman at voidspace.org.uk>:
> I don't think those reasons are compelling and the cost of splitting the
> Python development style guide into multiple documents are higher. (They run
> the risk of contradicting each other, if you want to find a particular rule
> you have multiple places to check, there is no single authoritative place to
> send people, people *wanting* to base documents off the Python style rules
> now have to refer to multiple places, etc.)
>
> So -1 on splitting Python development style guide into multiple documents.

Indeed. We don't need to clarify things very often, but the idea of
creating a new PEP every time we want to make something explicit that
was historically implicit (or otherwise underspecified) is a silly
idea. Allowing traceable revisions is what version control is for, and
hence why the PEP archive is part of the SVN repository.

As far as notifiying current developers of any changes, they will
generally be following python-dev anyway, or else will get pulled up
on python-checkins if the policy change is significant (and this one
really *isn't* all that significant - the only people it will affect
are those deciding whether to document or deprecate implicitly public
APIs and that almost never happens, since the vast majority of our
APIs are explicitly public or private).

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia