[python-advocacy] Python culture clash complaint

[Roy Smith]

On May 18, 2008, at 4:58 PM, Brad Allen wrote:
> Here is a blog from a developer exploring Python but getting  
> frustrated with the community attitude...

Another example is the thread that's currently going on in  
comp.lang.python under the subject, "unittest: Calling tests in liner  
number order".

In a nutshell, somebody suggested a change to unittest which people  
didn't think was a good idea.  The OP went to the trouble of reading  
the sources and posting a diff for the change he was suggesting.  In  
other words, he invested a fair amount of work to suggest what he felt  
was an improvement and offered his work back to the community.  He  
asked:

> Does the following patch has a chance of being introduced in the
> standard python distribution?

and got back responses such as,

> I certainly hope not!


and

> No and no. If anything, unit test cases should be run in a completely
> *non*-deterministic sequence.

I know tone is a subtle thing, but if I was the OP, I would come away  
from the whole exchange feeling like I'd gotten my head bitten off.   
Nobody said, "Thank you for taking the time to post the  
diffs..." (actually, I'm working on that response now).

--
roy at panix.com