Final statement from Steering Council on politically-charged commit messages

[justin walters]

I believe the commit message was written in bad faith. It reeks of virtue
signaling. Commit messages should remain purely technical in nature.
However, I do think the change itself is valid.

I don't care about the style of comments as long as they are clear and
communicate their message well. How is that determined? During the PR
review process. If you are performing a review and a comment is so poorly
written that you can't figure out what it means, request improvements.

Non technical discussion should be left out of commit messages and issues.
Instead, that sort of discussion should take place on mailing lists,
forums, and in person. As a community, we need to be more open to
discussing these sort of topics without resorting to condescending remarks.

I apologize for being ageist earlier as well. That was out of line.

On Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 9:36 AM Tim Daneliuk <info at tundraware.com> wrote:

> On 8/17/20 1:26 PM, Chris Angelico wrote:
> > For context, see this commit:
> >
> >
> https://github.com/python/peps/commit/0c6427dcec1e98ca0bd46a876a7219ee4a9347f4
> >
> > The commit message is highly politically charged and is now a
> > permanent part of the Python commit history. The Python Steering
> > Council has this to say:
> >
> >
> https://github.com/python/steering-council/issues/34#issuecomment-675028005
> >
> > "The SC discussed this and ... we do not deplore the message."
> >
> > So now we know: go ahead and put all the political messages you like
> > into the commit messages, just don't put anything inappropriate into
> > the content. White supremacy has been mentioned; who wants to pick the
> > next hot topic?
> >
> > ChrisA
> >
> Just a few thoughts here ...
>
> - While languages evolve over time, _in any given moment_ there are better
>   and worse ways to express ideas in a given language. "The Elements Of
> Style"
>   remains relevant today because it provides guidance on improving
>   written clarity.  It is not some blind defence of the
>   perfect English.
>
> - Precision of language and precision of thought go hand in hand.  Much
>   of the grousing about languages standards (in this case, hiding in
>   drag as social consciousness) is little more than intellectual laziness.
>   In actual fact, our discipline has burned a lot of intellectual
>   fuel in trying to find ways to be _more precise_ for things like
>   specifications, formal semantics, and the like.
>
> - It is my consistent experience when working with non-native English
>   speakers, that they wish to _improve_ their use and precision of the
>   language, not simplify it.
>
> - Why is English the only target of these social pieties?  You never
>   hear these demands to relax these linguistic standards for, say, French,
>   German, or Spanish.  Similarly, where is the outcry to make
>   Mandarin, Bantu, Swahili, or Arabic more approachable for
>   Westerners?
>
> Methinks there is an ideological skunk in the parlor ...
>
>
> --
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>