pychecker proposal
Nick Jacobson
nicksjacobson at yahoo.com
Tue May 4 04:46:29 EDT 2004
anton at vredegoor.doge.nl (Anton Vredegoor) wrote in message news:<4096d906$0$145$3a628fcd at reader1.nntp.hccnet.nl>...
> nicksjacobson at yahoo.com (Nick Jacobson) wrote:
>
> >I think that PyChecker should be part of the "batteries included"
> >library that comes with Python. It can be a very useful tool for
> >catching errors and bad style.
>
> Here are a few thoughts on this.
>
> a) How often will it be used by how many people?
>
> While I acknowledge PyCheckers usefulness, I tend not to use it very
> often. Maybe I should use it more, or maybe Pythons executable pseudo
> code quality forces PyChecker to fall in the "below 1% of use cases"
> category.
>
I can't speak for others, but I run every piece of code of mine
through it. It's a safety net for typos. It explains certain bugs
before I have to figure them out. And if nothing else, I configured
it to tell me to put in doc strings, which comes up all the time.
> b) Is it actively supported by people that are willing to release it
> synchronously with Pythons updates?
>
Well, that might be a bit of a deal-breaker.
> c) Is its license compatible with Python?
>
Not sure, but from the website,
"We believe that code should be as bug-free as possible. We believe
this so strongly, that we make tools freely available to help
programmers develop more robust systems."
> d) Are there other packages that should be included which have more
> urgency or that would be a better tradeoff for adding to the space
> that a Python standard distribution takes?
>
> Pychecker is not a very big package, which would be an argument in
> favor of including it.
>
Right, it's not very big. If there are other packages that are more
important, that's OK. But IMO PyChecker belongs in the "to be added"
queue.
> OTOH, some time ago I was at an Apple Itunes demonstration. I was
> happy to immediately start a Python shell on a mac, but I also noticed
> the conspicuous absence of an impressive Python demo.
>
> It would be a really good idea to include a (PyGame) demo like
> solarwolf in the standard distribution. Not because it would be used
> very often but because it would add substantially to the "out of the
> box experience" which is crucial for acquiring new customers.
>
> IMO this alone would outweigh even the disadvantage of adding a few
> megabytes to Pythons standard distribution and the disadvantage of
> making it look less "serious" by associating it with games.
>
I think this deserves its own thread :)
> e) Anything not mentioned above:-)
>
> Anton
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