Why "from __future__" stinks; a counter-offer

[Joshua Marshall]

Jeremy Hylton <jeremy at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
>>>>>> "VC" == Vadim Chugunov <chega_ at yahoo.com> writes:

>   >> might be OK -- alas, without a PEP, it's a non-starter).

>   VC> But, surely, the PEP can be updated!  This "from __future__"
>   VC> syntax is ugly, ugly, ugly!!!

> Vadim,

> If someone else wants to write a PEP and implement it this week, it
> would be considered.  Tim wrote the PEP.  I implemented it.  We're
> both going to be spending most of our waking hours this week getting
> ready for the beta release on Friday.  We have no time and less
> interest in implementing something other than the __future__
> mechanism.  We think it is a good solution to the problem it addresses.

> But neither of us is the BDFL.  If someone writes a PEP and implements
> it in the next day or two, he or she may be able to convince Guido
> that it is better than __future__.  In the absence of someone writing
> a new PEP, nothing is going to change.

> Jeremy

As responses to suggestions, there's a lot of "write up a PEP or it
won't get implemented" going around.  I can understand this, but it's
also important that good ideas don't go to waste just because the
proposer _didn't_ write a PEP.

I guess I just hope that the PEP-mechanism doesn't make it so that
good proposals get overlooked in favor of proposals with enthusiastic
proponents.