[stdlib-sig] Maintenance of optparse

[Brett Cannon]

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 11:44, Armin Ronacher
<armin.ronacher at active-4.com> wrote:
> Hello list,
>
> What started as a joke yesterday in the Bug Tracker and on Twitter now
> evolved into a serious consideration.  In case the only reason for
> optparse to go away is that it does not have a maintainer I would take
> over that task.
>
> In fact I would also implement missing features based on real-world
> needs.  That would most likely mean that some of the changes in argparse
> would end up in optparse as well.  Furthermore I would release a
> Python-independent version on PyPI for compatibility with older Python
> versions.
>
> I would take over this task if the following criteria are met:
>
> - argparse would not enter the standard library

Now I know you said in another email that you meant for this to be ""I
would only *continue* to maintain optparse is argparse does not end up
in the standard library", but that still feels like I am being
politically pushed around and I don't like that, especially when
argparse already exists and this proposal is hypothetical.

> - I'm allowed to modernize optparse after a discussion with python-dev
>  in a backwards compatible way.

That's always been allowed.

> - I'm allowed to refactor the code

As long as the unit tests pass (but that assumes optparse has thorough
tests) and you do not change the public API, then that has always been
allowed as well.

> - make the i18n support of the module more pluggable which would allow
>  specifying a custom translations instance instead of using the global
>  gettext function.

Depends on how you want to do that. If you are suggesting creating
your own i18n solution that precludes gettext, then no as that is the
current solution in the standard library and you shouldn't try to
exclude it. If you want it to be pluggable enough such that gettext or
any other solution can be used, then fine.

But ignoring your criteria, Armin, python-dev has the criteria that
you get commit privileges and I am not sure if you will get them
because of lack of participation on python-dev and the issue tracker.
Until you get commit privileges I can't take this seriously.

-Brett