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If a debate doesn't lead anywhere, it's just a waste of time.
If you end up being on the winning side, is it still a waste of time? If you end up being on the losing side of a debate, perhaps, sometimes. But I can't predict the future well enough to know the outcome in advance.
Donning my devil's advocate suite, here are some recent observations:
- Important decisions are made on internal PythonLabs meetings (unit testing, the scope issue, etc), not by an organized python- dev process.
Decisions are-- and were --made in Guido's head. Python-Dev was established to give him easier access to higher-quality input than was possible on c.l.py at the time, and to give Python developers a higher S/N place to hang out when discussing Python development. Internal PythonLabs meetings are really much the same, just on a smaller scale and with a higher-still S/N ratio. Both work for those purposes. It isn't-- and wasn't --the purpose of either to strip Guido of the last word.
Does anyone care about -1 and +1's anymore?
Did anyone ever <0.5 wink>? A scattering of two-character arguments is interesting to get a quick feel, but even I wouldn't *decide* anything on that basis. If this were an ANSI/ISO committee, a single -1 would have absolute power -- and then we'd still be using Python 0.9.6 (ANSI/ISO committees need soul-crushingly boring and budget-bustingly expensive meetings regularly else consensus would never be reached on anything -- if people get to veto in their spare time while sitting at home, and without opponents blowing spit right in their face for the 18th time in 6 years, there's insufficient pressure *to* compromise).
- The PEP process isn't working ("I updated the PEP and checked in the code", "but *that* PEP doesn't apply to *me*", etc).
Need to define "working". I don't think it's what it should be yet, but is making progress.
- Impressive hacks are more important than concerns from people who make their living selling Python technology (rather than a specific application). Codewise, nested scopes are amazing. From a marketing perspective, it's a disaster.
Any marketing droid would believe that Python's current market is a fraction of its potential market, and so welcome any "new feature" that makes new sales easier. c.l.py is a microcosm of this battlefield, and the cry for nested scopes has continued unabated since the day lambda was introduced. I've never met a marketing type (and I've met more than my share ...) who wouldn't seize this as an opportunity to *expand* market share. Sales droids servicing existing accounts *may* grumble -- or the more inventive may take it as an opportunity to drive home the importance of their relationship to their customers ("it's us against them, and boy aren't you glad you've got Amalgamated Pythonistries on your side!").
(even more absurd allegations snipped)
With gratitude, and I'll skip even more absurd rationalizations <wink>.
Am I entirely wrong?
Of course not. The world isn't that simple. indeed-the-world-is-heavily-nested<wink>-ly y'rs - tim PS: At the internal PythonLabs mtg today, I voted against nested scopes. But also for them. Leaving that to Jeremy to explain.