[Python-Dev] PEP czar for PEP 3144?

[Guido van Rossum]

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 4:53 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen at xemacs.org> wrote:
> Steven D'Aprano writes:
>
>  > Also, "Czar" is commonly used in US politics as an informal term for the top
>  > official responsible for an area.
>
> I think here the most important connotation is that in US parlance a
> "czar" does not report to a committee, and with the exception of a
> case where Sybil is appointed czar, cannot bikeshed.  Decisions get
> made (what a concept!)

I'm curious how old that usage is. I first encountered it around '88
when I interned for a summer at DEC SRC (long since subsumed into HP
Labs); the person in charge of deciding a particular aspect of their
software or organization was called a czar, e.g. the documentation
czar.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)