New PEP: Quality Guidelines For Standard Modules

[Dinu Gherman]

Carlos Ribeiro wrote:
> 
> PEP: Unnumbered
> Title: Quality Guidelines For Standard Modules
> Version: $Revision: 0.1$
> Author: cribeiro at mail.inet.com.br (Carlos Ribeiro)
> Status: Draft
> Type: Informational
> Created: 01-Jul-2001
> Post-History:

Ola, Carlos,

In general, that makes pretty much sense to me, although
some statements are likely too vague to go without every-
body interpreting them at will. And, quite likely, under 
the term "quality criteria" might be hiding another hot
PEPper...

Still, I'll add two points that I'd like to see covered as
well in a PEP like this:

1. whereever possible the set of features labeled loosely
   as "desired qualities" of a standard module must be 
   detectable by an automated test tool using PyUnit, and

2. the PEP's scope should at least address the possibili-
   ties for making existing modules of the standard library
   more compliant with those desired qualities.

Number 1 is not to enforce anything (hard anyway), but 
simply to be able to run compliance tests to avoid silly 
disputes about a given module's compliance with the listed 
features. Using Python 2.1 this should be much easier than 
before.

Number 2 is a heretic one, yes, but nevertheless important 
for achieving true consistency and ease of use for new mem-
bers of the Python community. This kind of thing is unfor-
tunately often underestimated.

Best regards,

Dinu

-- 
Dinu C. Gherman
ReportLab Consultant - http://www.reportlab.com
................................................................
"The only possible values [for quality] are 'excellent' and 'in-
sanely excellent', depending on whether lives are at stake or 
not. Otherwise you don't enjoy your work, you don't work well, 
and the project goes down the drain." 
                    (Kent Beck, "Extreme Programming Explained")