[Python-Dev] XXX do we need a new policy?

[Guido van Rossum]

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 3:49 PM, Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:
> On Nov 3, 2008, at 6:39 PM, Benjamin Peterson wrote:
>
>> Grepping through Python's sources tells me that we have over 2,000
>> "XXX" comments. The thing that irks me about them is that the have a
>> very slow rate of being resolved, since they usually act more as
>> "notes to self" rather than easily attainable tasks.
>>
>> So, I propose that we adopt a policy similar to Twisted's: All "XXX"
>> comments must have an issue in the tracker and an accompanying link
>> with the source code. That way we'll have a forum for discussing the
>> changes and deciding whether they are reasonable enough to
>> implemented.
>
> We have a very similar policy here at work.  Sadly I don't think it does
> much on actually resolving the issues.  XXX bugs tend to be pretty minor in
> the scheme of things and they're almost always lower on the priority list
> than everything else.
>
> That being said, we recognize that XXX bugs incur "technical debt" and
> reducing that debt is something we're devoting Real Time to doing.
>
> I see that Guido is not keen on the idea, and I'm not sure my observations
> help sway things one way or the other.  OTOH, it would be nice if at least
> we always add our own identifier (initials, nick, email address) and a date
> to the XXX so we at least know who was talking about what.

At Google we use TODO(<username>): Blah, blah. I don't think ading a
date would help much but I wouldn't be opposed to this.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)