Formal Question to Steering Council (re recent PEP8 changes)

[Rhodri James]

On 02/07/2020 18:11, Dieter Maurer wrote:
> I am no member of the Council. Thus, your questions are not directed
> to me. **BUT** you made your questions public and thus you are
> likely prepared to receive public comments.

Fortunately you don't answer any of the questions, so I don't need to 
have an opinion on that :-)

> The commit message tries to provide the motivation for
> the change. In my view, it is good to document change motivations
> and a commit message is not a bad place for that.

True.  However, the motivation as appeared in the discussions was 
(approximately) that many people, especially those whose first language 
is not English, find being given a list of writing guidelines like 
Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style" intimidating.  That's fair 
enough, though a bit more consideration suggests that many people have 
exactly the opposite problem.  The wording could be amended to reassure 
both, and I've been contemplating doing so.

The political diatribe about the linguistic contribution to white 
supremacy of standardized English appeared nowhere in the discussion. 
Had it done so, I suspect Keala would have realised quite quickly that 
using it would be (and has been) controversial and divisive, the exact 
opposite of her stated intentions.

All of which is quite beside the point for the questions I raised.  As I 
said, it doesn't matter whether you agree with that political opinion 
raised, disagree with it, or do not give a monkey's, should _any_ 
political opinion be in the repo?

-- 
Rhodri James *-* Kynesim Ltd