Use the Source Luke

[Raymond Hettinger]

On Jan 30, 6:47 am, Tim Wintle <tim.win... at teamrubber.com> wrote:
> +1 - I think the source links are very useful (and thanks for pushing
> them).

Happy to do it.

> However I think the biggest changes that have probably happened with
> python itself are:
>
>  (1) More users for whom this is their first language.
>  (2) CS courses / training not teaching C (or pointer-based languages).
>
> (2) is especially important IMO - under half of the python developers I
> have regularly worked with would feel comfortable reading C - so for the
> other half reading C source code probably isn't going to help them
> understand exactly what's going on (although in the long run it might
> help them a lot)

That would explain why fewer people look at the C source code.

However, even the parts of the standard library written in pure Python
don't seem to be getting read anymore, so I'm still inclined to
attribute the issue to 1) inconvenient placement of source code,
2) a largish code base, and 3) possibly a cultural shift.

I'm thinking that all of those can be addressed by efforts
to lower to intellectual investment required to find the
relevant source code.


Raymond