Do you QA your Python? Was: 2.1 vs. 2.2

[phil hunt]

On Mon, 22 Apr 2002 19:17:53 GMT, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
>> >phil hunt wrote:
>> >> IMO until Python developers adopt a policy of being very reluctant
>> >> to do this, many IT managers will be wary of using it in anything
>> >> other thsan toy projects, and Python's user base will not grow as
>> >> quickly as (IMO) it should.
>
>[Guido]
>> >If in your opinion Python should grow faster, perhaps you could
>> >help out by contributing rather than by telling us what to do...
>
>philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk (phil hunt) writes:
>
>> I would contribute, but you have just said that you won't accept my 
>> proposed changes.
>
>There are other ways to contribute besides by proposing language
>features.  We need help doing code cleanup, backporting patches to
>bugfix releases, documentation, and so on.

There have certainly been times when I have read the documentation,
and thought "that point could have been better explained". Having
said that, I'm still using 2.0, and I dare say the latest docs are
better. Buit the next time I get this feeling, I will have a look at
the latest docs and submit a patch (assuming that's the correct way
to submit changes to documentation).

>Also, I only told you about one very specific (and silly) 

IMO it wasn't silly. To some extent, you must agree with me, because 
otherwise you would have required stuff like:

   import nothing from system
   define no classes in this program
   def myFunction(void):
      a = [ empty ]    
      b = "\empty"

instead of:

   def myFunction():
      a = [ ]
      b = ""

Indeed there are many places in Python (and probably every other 
programming language as well) were one can specify nothing simply by 
not saying anything, rather than by explicitly having to say "I 
don't want anything here".

>change
>you've proposed that I wouldn't accept it.  But I'd rather see you
>help out in other ways than proposing language changes, since the
>latter (even if they don't break anything) cause complaints about the
>pace of change.

These could be mitigated by making non-bugfix releases less often, 
perhaps using a system of even/odd version numbers like Linux uses.


-- 
<"><"><"> Philip Hunt <philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk> <"><"><">
"I would guess that he really believes whatever is politically 
advantageous for him to believe." 
                        -- Alison Brooks, referring to Michael
                              Portillo, on soc.history.what-if