The language vs. the environment

[Skip Montanaro]

There has been a huge amount of recent PEP activity related to further
enhancements to the language.  I think in general that if more of this
energy was directed at the overall environment (library, support tools,
installers, documentation, etc) we'd be better off in the long run.

For the most part, I think the proposals currently on the table, while some
are very nice, aren't going to make a significant change in programmer
productivity, code maintainability or accessibility of the language by new
users.  I understand the lure.  I have succumbed to the lure myself on many
occasions.  It's cool to participate in a bit of language design, most of us
are pretty good programmers and we can project how we might use a particular
feature.  As Andrew Kuchling said on his page about the Frank Willison award
he received last month:

     Thanks to Guido, first, for writing a language that's both fun to hack
     in, and fun to hack on.

Still, even though Andrew is clearly a damn talented programmer, if you
think about what he's best known for in the Python community, it's likely
his "What's New" documents, e.g.:

    http://www.amk.ca/python/2.2/

If you're looking for something to munch on, here are some suggestions, not
all of which require that you write code:

    * breathe some life into the catalog-sig:
          http://www.python.org/sigs/catalog-sig/

    * find a Python bug without a proposed fix and write one (there are
      currently between 250 and 300 open bug reports):
          http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=5470&atid=105470

    * document an undocumented module from the standard library:
          http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/undoc.html

    * write a HOWTO (another of Andrew's little sideline projects!) about
      your little niche of Python expertise:
          http://py-howto.sourceforge.net/

-- 
Skip Montanaro (skip at pobox.com - http://www.mojam.com/)