[Python-Dev] PEP 414

[R. David Murray]

On Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:12:48 +0000, Armin Ronacher <armin.ronacher at active-4.com> wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 2/29/12 12:30 PM, Yury Selivanov wrote:
> > I see you've (or somebody) changed:
> Yes, I reworded that.
> 
> > Could you just remove the statement completely?
> I will let Nick handle the PEP wording.
> 
> > I don't think that PEPs are the right place to put such polemic 
> > and biased statements.
> Why call it polemic?  If you want to use ubuntu LTS you're forcing

Presumably because it comes across to him that way.

Perception aside, I do think it matches the dictionary meaning of the
term ("One who writes in support of one opinion, doctrine, or system,
in opposition to another"), which Nick's edits will presumably fix
(by addressing all sides of the argument, as a finished PEP should).

> yourself to stick to a particular Python version for a longer time.
> Which means you don't want to have to adjust your code.  Which again
> means that you're better of with the Python 2.x ecosystem which is
> proven, does not change nearly as quickly as the Python 3 one
> (hopefully) so if you have the choice between those two you would chose
> 2.x over 3.x.  That's what this sentence is supposed to say.  That's not
> polemic, that's just a fact.

Wow.  I never would have guessed that from the sentence in question.
I don't think I agree with your "that means" statement either, I
can imagine other motivations for using an LTS.  But I don't think
that discussion is worth getting in to or matters for the PEP.

> > Nobody asked you to express your *personal* feelings and thoughts
> > about applicability or state of python3 in the PEP.
> That is not a personal-feeling-PEP.  If people would be 100% happy with
> Python 3 we would not have these discussions, would we.
> 
> Why is it that I'm getting "attacked" on this mailinglist for writing
> this PEP, or the wording etc.

I think it is because people are *perceiving* that you are attacking
Python3 and arguing (out of your personal experience) that porting
is harder than other people (out of their personal experience) have
found it to be.  This presumably reflects the different problem
domains people are working in.

--David