[Idle-dev] IDLE dev FAQ

[phil jones]

Hi Terry,

thanks for the response. Replies interspersed below :

On 11 February 2014 16:52, Terry Reedy <tjreedy at udel.edu> wrote:

>> Q : Where can I check-out the current state of IDLE development?
> What does 'current state of Idle development' mean to you.

Well, I'd assume it's like this. Suppose there were two people (the
infamous Alice and Bob) working with you on the software. Each of them
is fixing bugs and submitting patches to you.

But you'd ideally want them both to be as much in sync with each other
as possible. So that Alice isn't doing things that are incompatible
with the changes that Bob is making. (Particularly if there's
refactoring going on, like you've been talking about with
consolidating many small files into fewer larger ones.)

So on the one hand you would want Alice and Bob to be pulling each
other's changes as frequently as possible. On the other, you might
want to have some role as a gatekeeper in case Bob starts making
changes that you think the community wouldn't agree with.
Finally, the changes that Alice and Bob are making are not yet fully
tested on all platforms and so not necessarily accepted into the main
Python release yet.

So I'd assume there's a repo somewhere which is a kind of reference
point for "current development release", it's something you gatekeep
enough that Alice and Bob know that what's been accepted to it is part
of the plan for what will go into the final release, and they can keep
pulling from it to keep their development environments up-to-date.

If you don't have something like this, then Bob has to wait until
Alice's patch has gone all the way through acceptance into the release
(which may take years) before he can see it and work against it.

So that's the question. Where is the equivalent of  *that* repository
for IDLE? Is it just http://hg.python.org/cpython ?

Or is that main cpython repo for patches that have undergone the full
testing on all platforms, and are ready for release? If so, how can
multiple contributors co-ordinate with each other?

> This returns 32000 hits, most closed, and most not about Idle. Use component=6 instead.
> This also returns a table with a column for every field. That would be most useful as input
> that makes a custom condensed table or summary. The standard condensed table (but
> without status = open on every line) would be the same as above without &keywords=2.

OK. Thanks. Yes, trying to figure out what's the right arguments are
for the search URL.

> Only if the PSF Code of Conduct applies to this list and personal attacks
> are not tolerated.

I assume you mean that if you aren't prepared to to follow the code of
conduct you aren't welcome on this list? Not that there's a different
space somewhere else where people are talking about IDLE?

On this note, I was looking at http://bugs.python.org/issue17390 and I
saw you wrote this :

Edmond: please fill in, sign, and send by your preferred method a PSF
Contributor Agreement
http://www.python.org/psf/contrib/contrib-form/ (back up a level for
more explanation)

For a patch more complicated than this, the CA would now be required
before applying a patch of yours.

What does this mean exactly?

BTW : Here's the work-in-progress on the FAQ, temporarily on github :
https://github.com/interstar/idle-dev-faq

cheers

Phil