PEP status and python-dev summaries

[Adam Logghe]

Thanks for the summaries Andrew. I will be very sorry to see them go.

While I didn't see any need to comment, I was very glad to have an idea of
what was in the pipe. I would very much like to see the PEPs themselves as
they come through so I can plan ahead for changes to my own code as Python
moves along.

I would suggest that the full text of the PEP should be posted for every
change.

While this would be painful on a mailing list, I would not find it to be an
issue whatsoever on a newsgroup.

As a guide to what has changed, ideally a diff from the old version would be
attached on the end of the new PEP version. This would allow a quick visual
look at the changes. It may not be easy to make perfect sense of the change,
it would quickly point out whether the PEP had undergone minor or major
change.

I would suggest that publishing often provides at least two advantages.

A. Eliminating the decision of whether or not to publish will eliminate the
tendency for the  PEP undergo significant "creep" as minor changes add up to
significant changes in actual function. I think anyone that programs can
agree that minor syntax changes can and do have profound effects.

B. Having the PEP show up in front of people at multiple points during it's
life will expose it to more eyeballs.

If full posting is not pursued perhaps you might do something like-

A weekly summary of the mail traffic on the list simply by listing of the
active PEPs and then the number of times that PEP number appears in email
subject or body over the week. I would hope that people try to include the
PEP number in the subject line as a matter of courtesy anyway.

While this may not be the most accurate it would give us a simple
representation of the activity around a PEP and would perhaps spur further
investigations.

Thanks again. Sorry to see the Summary go but you shouldn't let it get in
the way of coding. ; )

I will look forward to however Jeremy and Barry decide to proceed.

Adam Logghe
adam in the domain devtty.net


"Andrew Kuchling" <akuchlin at mems-exchange.org> wrote in message
news:3dg0hn8zlr.fsf at ute.cnri.reston.va.us...
> Jeremy Hylton <jeremy at alum.mit.edu> writes:
> > - Regular announcements of PEP creation and PEP status changes should
> >   be posted to comp.lang.python and c.l.p.a.
>
> Should the full text of PEPs be posted at some point?  Perhaps the
> first draft, and significant revisions, should be posted so that
> people can follow-up directly to the PEP.  "Significant" will be left
> up to the PEP author; you wouldn't repost after every typo or minor
> clarification, but if your first approach was completely bogus, you'd
> post the massively revised version.
>
> --amk