[Python-checkins] PEP 374

[Raymond Hettinger]

Somewhere near the top of the PEP, I think there should be a discussion of reasons not to change at all.

Everytime we alter the tool chain, it disrupts developers lives.  When I was working mainly under Windows, I was at one time the 
most active contributor by a huge margin.  Then Martin switched the build to VC7 which caused me to go over year before I could make 
another checkin to CPython.  By then VC8 was out and VC7 was hard to find.  It crippled my development.  When we switch tools, 
*every* developer will have to go through an install, switchover, and learn a new set of commands and checkin practices.  The is a 
huge PITA and it is almost certain that some developers won't bother.  For many of the developers that do bother, it will cost them 
a day of their lives getting switched over and working through the learning curve -- that is a day that could have been spent fixing 
bugs or doing something non-administrative that actually adds value.

Before we boot SVN, I think we need to be damned sure that there will be HUGE offsetting benefits to a DVCS and be pretty sure that 
our little community is actually ready for a distributed process.

I'm concerned that over time we're moving towards a process that has a lot more admin than we used to.  Changes to PEP 8, rules on 
indentation, review rules, etc seem to be driven by the least active developers.  Most of the folks who do most of the work rarely 
ask for more restrictions, more admin, etc.  Even little things like automatically rejecting submissios without whitespace 
normalization add to the admin burden (time spent doing something that doesn't actually improve lives for end-users).

SVN is relatively simple.  DVCS systems are much more process oriented and aimed at professional developers.  I think we will lose 
many newbie patches if the person is forced to use an unfamiliar version control system.

I like the quality of the research that you're doing but suspect that the end goal of switching away from SVN may not be worth the 
disruption and effects on real developers.

My two cents,


Raymond