[python-committers] Transfer of power

[Brett Cannon]

On Mon, 16 Jul 2018 at 15:21 Jack Jansen <jack.jansen at cwi.nl> wrote:

>
>
> On  16-Jul-2018, at 04:38 , Tim Peters <tim.peters at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Guido's most visible (well, to us committers) BDFL role has been in
> "yes/no", "go/nogo" language/library design questions, which don't even
> overlap with the PSF's proper concerns.
>
> But I'm not sure it's fully appreciated just how active Guido has been in
> those at times.  The "accepted/rejected" at the end of major PEPs is just a
> small part of that.  Along the way, e.g., it's been pretty common to see a
> "Save your breath.  That's not going to happen." from Guido to end a
> distracting alternative (sub)proposal persistently promoted by one (or a
> few) very active and/or loquacious posters.
>
>
> This is a very good point. And it is a role that is not “formally encoded”
> anywhere, and one that I think cannot be formally encoded.
>
> And actually I wonder whether this role could be fulfilled by any
> person/committee/procedure other than Guido himself. Which means that in
> future we should prepare for doing without this role. Which will lead to
> more contentious issues being put in front of the
> whatever-body-replaces-the-bdfl, because the early weeding out isn’t going
> to happen.
>

I'm not sure if I agree with that in this case. In terms of this specific
case of quickly shutting down dead-end discussions, that comes down to time
and dedication and maybe a decently broad knowledge base to grasp a concept
quickly enough or ability to learn on their feet. But those are not magical
traits of Guido's. To me the question is whether we can replace Guido's
design sensibilities.
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