Bug reports [was Re: Python list code of conduct]

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, 02 Jul 2013 19:46:13 -0400, Roy Smith wrote:

> In article <mailman.4125.1372798337.3114.python-list at python.org>,
>  Ned Deily <nad at acm.org> wrote:
> 
>> If you find a bug in Python, don't send it to comp.lang.python; file a
>> bug report in the issue tracker.
> 
> I'm not sure I agree with that one, at least not fully.  It's certainly
> true that you shouldn't expect anybody to do anything about a bug unless
> you open an issue.
> 
> On the other hand, I often find it useful to discuss things that I
> believe are bugs on c.l.p first.  Sometimes people will explain to me
> that I'm just doing it wrong.  Sometimes the discussion will end up
> with, "Yeah, that's a bug".  In either case, it serves as a good initial
> filter for whether I should file a bug or not, and the discussion is
> often educational.

Agreed strongly!

It frustrates and amuses me when I see newbies, who sometimes don't know 
enough Python to tell the difference between (1, 2, 3) and [1, 2, 3], 
jump straight to the conclusion that anything that doesn't work the way 
they expect must be a bug in Python.

If you are a beginner to a programming language, assume that anything 
that doesn't work the way you expect is a bug in YOUR code, or YOUR 
understanding, not in the language. 99.9999% of the time you will be 
correct. If you assume the opposite, you will nearly always just come 
across looking hopelessly naive at best, and at worst like an entitled, 
arrogant idiot.

A popular language like Python has been around for about 20 years. It is 
in daily use by tens of thousands of people around the world. What are 
the chances that you, in your first week of using Python, just happened 
to stumble across a bug that *nobody else in the world* has noticed?

So anyway, if you're going to make a fool of yourself by loudly 
proclaiming that your broken code is a bug in the language, at least do 
it here rather than waste the time of the people actually working on 
Python :-)



-- 
Steven