[Python-Dev] PEP 493: Redistributor guidance for Python 2.7 HTTPS

[Nick Coghlan]

On 7 July 2015 at 21:49, s.krah <stefan at bytereef.org> wrote:
>
>
> Erik Bray <erik.m.bray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 6:21 AM, Antoine Pitrou <solipsis at pitrou.net>
>> wrote:
>>> On Mon, 6 Jul 2015 14:22:46 +1000
>>> Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> The main change from the last version discussed on python-ideas
>>>
>>> Was it discussed there? That list has become totally useless, I've
>>> stopped following it.
>
>> Considering that a useful discussion of a useful PEP occurred there
>> (not to mention other occasionally useful discussions) I'd say that
>> such a value judgment is not only unnecessary but also inaccurate.
>> That's fine if it's uninteresting to you and you don't want to follow
>> it, but let's please avoid judgments on entire mailing lists and, by
>> extension, the people holding conversations there.
>
> In an informal setting, exaggeration is used widely in continental Europe.
> I found the remark funny and was glad to hear that I'm not the only one
> who has problems with python-ideas.

Folks are free to make all the jokes they want about python-ideas over
drinks at a conference, or when bouncing their heads off their desks
at how far off the rails a particular thread has gone - we wouldn't be
human if we didn't need to vent our frustrations sometimes.

That doesn't make it OK to vent those frustrations *here*. Here,
python-ideas needs to be accepted as a useful component of the
development process - it's the location where more freewheeling "this
*might* be a good idea" design discussions can happen with input from
experienced core developers and other community members without
bothering the folks that aren't interested in those kinds of
conversations, before python-dev and the issue tracker come into play
to provide more ruthless weeding out of the bad ideas. An awful lot of
what we discuss on python-ideas will turn out to be a bad idea, just
be sheer weight of probability. However, even weeding out the bad
ideas is a useful exercise in refining our collective understanding of
what "good" looks like (I know I've learned a *lot* from the many
occasions where Guido or someone else has persuaded me that one of my
ideas wasn't as good as I originally thought it was).

It's OK if folks aren't interested in participating in the noisy early
stages of that process - that's why the activity was long since moved
out to a dedicated list. It's not OK to make the jump from "I don't
consider participating in that to be the best possible use of my own
time" to "it isn't worth doing".

Regards,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia