http://bugs.python.org/issue231540
Is there any money to pay for the forthcoming 10th birthday party for this issue? Is the OP still alive? Kindest regards. Mark Lawrence.
On 23 July 2010 23:26, Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Is there any money to pay for the forthcoming 10th birthday party for this issue? Is the OP still alive?
I'm not sure the sarcasm helps much. What do you suggest should be done with the request? Nobody has provided a patch, so there's nothing to commit. Closing it as "won't fix" seems unreasonable, as I imagine that should a suitable patch be supplied, it would be accepted. There's no magical means by which such a patch would appear, though. The OP clearly[1] is either not interested enough or doesn't have the skills to provide a patch, and no-one else has stepped up to do so. Note that it's been classified as a feature request, not a bug. So there's nothing wrong, as such, with it remaining unresolved. Paul. [1] I say "clearly" - it may be that he could provide a patch if asked. Maybe it would be worth you contacting him to ask if the issue is still a problem for him, and whether he can assist in resolving it.
On 24/07/2010 00:09, Paul Moore wrote:
On 23 July 2010 23:26, Mark Lawrence<breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Is there any money to pay for the forthcoming 10th birthday party for this issue? Is the OP still alive?
I'm not sure the sarcasm helps much. What do you suggest should be done with the request? Nobody has provided a patch, so there's nothing to commit. Closing it as "won't fix" seems unreasonable, as I imagine that should a suitable patch be supplied, it would be accepted.
There's no magical means by which such a patch would appear, though. The OP clearly[1] is either not interested enough or doesn't have the skills to provide a patch, and no-one else has stepped up to do so.
Note that it's been classified as a feature request, not a bug. So there's nothing wrong, as such, with it remaining unresolved.
Paul.
[1] I say "clearly" - it may be that he could provide a patch if asked. Maybe it would be worth you contacting him to ask if the issue is still a problem for him, and whether he can assist in resolving it.
Paul, I'm on the verge of giving up my time because the whole system is a complete and utter waste of my time. I feel quite happy that in my brief tenure I've closed 46 issues, but there's so many more that could have been closed, but yet again you don't even get the courtesy of a response when there's more in the pipeline that could be closed. I'd quote the issue numbers here and now, but I'm just too flaming tired to do so, though a quick count indicates I've got 23 ongoing that I'm attempting to sort. As it happens, I have been having discussions offline in an attempt to shift the culture of Python development but I don't believe that anything will come out of it. Let's face it, development is much more interesting than bug fixes. And once again, if some stupid idiot volunteer bothers to put in a patch to the code and/or the unit test, and it sits and rots for five years, is that person likely to come back to Python? Strangely, some do. Sorry, I'm off to bed. Yours feeling most disillusioned with python-dev. Mark Lawrence.
On 24 July 2010 01:39, Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
On 24/07/2010 00:09, Paul Moore wrote:
On 23 July 2010 23:26, Mark Lawrence<breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Is there any money to pay for the forthcoming 10th birthday party for this issue? Is the OP still alive?
I'm not sure the sarcasm helps much. What do you suggest should be done with the request? Nobody has provided a patch, so there's nothing to commit. Closing it as "won't fix" seems unreasonable, as I imagine that should a suitable patch be supplied, it would be accepted.
There's no magical means by which such a patch would appear, though. The OP clearly[1] is either not interested enough or doesn't have the skills to provide a patch, and no-one else has stepped up to do so.
Note that it's been classified as a feature request, not a bug. So there's nothing wrong, as such, with it remaining unresolved.
Paul.
[1] I say "clearly" - it may be that he could provide a patch if asked. Maybe it would be worth you contacting him to ask if the issue is still a problem for him, and whether he can assist in resolving it.
Paul,
I'm on the verge of giving up my time because the whole system is a complete and utter waste of my time. I feel quite happy that in my brief tenure I've closed 46 issues, but there's so many more that could have been closed, but yet again you don't even get the courtesy of a response when there's more in the pipeline that could be closed. I'd quote the issue numbers here and now, but I'm just too flaming tired to do so, though a quick count indicates I've got 23 ongoing that I'm attempting to sort.
As it happens, I have been having discussions offline in an attempt to shift the culture of Python development but I don't believe that anything will come out of it. Let's face it, development is much more interesting than bug fixes. And once again, if some stupid idiot volunteer bothers to put in a patch to the code and/or the unit test, and it sits and rots for five years, is that person likely to come back to Python? Strangely, some do.
Sorry, I'm off to bed.
Yours feeling most disillusioned with python-dev.
Mark Lawrence.
Mark, when I read your emails it seems to me as if you have the greatest concern with improving Python, the language and improving the state of the bug tracker. This is a great thing, people like you are much needed. However, I do seem to notice you try to take a business-like approach here on this mailinglist. Most people on python-dev are volunteers who (like you) spend their free time helping and working on Python. People who work in their free time are less likely to feel obliged to respond immediately to an issue. They are also less likely to keep paying attention to the bugs they were assigned. I think a person like you is needed, someone who weeds through the rotting bug reports (not the feature requests) and tries to follow up on them. Is the issue persistent for the user, has it been fixed as collateral on another fix, etcetera. However, I think you would get more done if you switched from a business philosophy to accepting that most people here are volunteers, don't try to pressure volunteers. Try to do the best *you* can within the community and let that help the project further. Oh, and with business philosophy I mean: mails like the one you start this thread with are interpreted by me as being very pushy, overly sarcastic and if my project manager at the office sends me an email like that I know I have to do it right now. I would dislike to be spoken to like this in an voluntary environment. Do note that I do understand where your feelings come from. Regards, Simon de Vlieger P.S. a feature day sounds like a great idea!
Oh, and with business philosophy I mean: mails like the one you start this thread with are interpreted by me as being very pushy, overly sarcastic and if my project manager at the office sends me an email like that I know I have to do it right now. I would dislike to be spoken to like this in an voluntary environment. Do note that I do understand where your feelings come from.
+1. Regards, Martin
On Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 18:39, Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk>wrote:
On 24/07/2010 00:09, Paul Moore wrote:
On 23 July 2010 23:26, Mark Lawrence<breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Is there any money to pay for the forthcoming 10th birthday party for this issue? Is the OP still alive?
I'm not sure the sarcasm helps much. What do you suggest should be done with the request? Nobody has provided a patch, so there's nothing to commit. Closing it as "won't fix" seems unreasonable, as I imagine that should a suitable patch be supplied, it would be accepted.
There's no magical means by which such a patch would appear, though. The OP clearly[1] is either not interested enough or doesn't have the skills to provide a patch, and no-one else has stepped up to do so.
Note that it's been classified as a feature request, not a bug. So there's nothing wrong, as such, with it remaining unresolved.
Paul.
[1] I say "clearly" - it may be that he could provide a patch if asked. Maybe it would be worth you contacting him to ask if the issue is still a problem for him, and whether he can assist in resolving it.
Paul,
I'm on the verge of giving up my time because the whole system is a complete and utter waste of my time. I feel quite happy that in my brief tenure I've closed 46 issues, but there's so many more that could have been closed, but yet again you don't even get the courtesy of a response when there's more in the pipeline that could be closed. I'd quote the issue numbers here and now, but I'm just too flaming tired to do so, though a quick count indicates I've got 23 ongoing that I'm attempting to sort.
As it happens, I have been having discussions offline in an attempt to shift the culture of Python development but I don't believe that anything will come out of it. Let's face it, development is much more interesting than bug fixes. And once again, if some stupid idiot volunteer bothers to put in a patch to the code and/or the unit test, and it sits and rots for five years, is that person likely to come back to Python? Strangely, some do.
Sorry, I'm off to bed.
Yours feeling most disillusioned with python-dev.
Mark, First off, thanks for your time. One thing I don't feel is very beneficial is to focus so much on the number of issues you are able to close, because that number by itself is too high-level. Closing 10 issues might not be better than closing 5 issues. If you follow baseball, it's like a pitcher's win total. A higher number doesn't really mean the pitcher is better, and a lower number doesn't mean the pitcher is worse. You find the better pitcher by drilling down into more specific statistics. Closing an obviously invalid issue takes little effort, but it's a -1 for the issue total. Closing an issue as fixed might take a little more effort in tracking down a revision number, but it's a -1 for the total and some varying value for performance, coverage, etc. Closing an issue early because no one commented or no one proposed a patch in some certain time span is, to me, +1 to the total, possibly more. Not closing an issue is a +/- 0. An issue is an issue once confirmed, regardless of a lack of comment or a lack of attention from core development. I agree that it's unfortunate having issues drag on, but time is one of the biggest bottlenecks in the development of open source software. We have plenty of qualified, quality, smart people working on Python, but there are only so many hours in the day that we can spend on it. With that said, I hope you'll continue your efforts. What helped me when I started out in your position was to pick issues I knew I could work on with relative ease and come out without having to duck too many times. I knew I wasn't going to remove the GIL, but I could start with some of the low hanging fruit like making zipfile.ZipFile work as a context manager (first thing I fixed, I think). Like you, I wanted to make an impact, and in order to make a longer term impact I wanted to have some early success to get further into the game. No one wants to keep going if it's not fun, and this should be fun. My suggestion is to throw more effort into less issues. Going back to baseball, if you can advance the runners without getting on base yourself (e.g., a sacrifice fly out), that's still a good thing for the team. Providing a code review to a review-less issue is more valuable than requesting that someone else provide comments -- a review moves the issue along. Updating a patch to a current revision is worth more than seeing if anyone still runs AIX -- updating moves the issue along.
On Sat, 24 Jul 2010 12:42:12 pm Brian Curtin wrote:
First off, thanks for your time. One thing I don't feel is very beneficial is to focus so much on the number of issues you are able to close, because that number by itself is too high-level. Closing 10 issues might not be better than closing 5 issues. If you follow baseball, it's like a pitcher's win total. [...] My suggestion is to throw more effort into less issues. Going back to baseball
Mark is from the UK. He has probably heard of baseball, but otherwise baseball analogies will probably go right over his head (as they went over mine). -- Steven D'Aprano
On Sat, 24 Jul 2010 09:39:49 am Mark Lawrence wrote:
I'm on the verge of giving up my time because the whole system is a complete and utter waste of my time. [...]
Mark, you have entirely avoided the issues Paul raised. It's one thing to fire off a snarky email implying that the Python developers are lazy slackers for allowing an issue to approach ten years old, but Paul's response is valid. What do you suggest should be done with it? Close it as "Won't fix"? That doesn't help anyone. If you have the appropriate patch and unit tests, then great, you should say so. But I believe trying to guilt others into writing the needed tests is neither fair nor effective in the long term. Snarking publicly might make you feel better, but it makes for an unpleasant community and is likely to alienate more people than it will inspire.
And once again, if some stupid idiot volunteer bothers to put in a patch to the code and/or the unit test, and it sits and rots for five years, is that person likely to come back to Python? Strangely, some do.
I'm not sure that describing people who provide patches as "stupid idiot volunteers" is a good way to motivate more people to provide patches. But either way, I think you answer your own question: apparently some people *are* understanding of the reasons that issues sometimes get missed or neglected. -- Steven D'Aprano
On 7/23/2010 6:26 PM, Mark Lawrence wrote:
Is there any money to pay for the forthcoming 10th birthday party for this issue? Is the OP still alive?
This reminds me of some low priority items on my todo list ;-) Hmmm. Right now there are 756 open feature requests out of 2779 open issues. There have been bug days. Maybe after 3.2 is out, we should have a feature day to see if some feature requests cannot be closed as obsolete, unwise, unwanted, or too difficult. It is possible that PEP3099, Rejected ideas, could be expanded to help triagers close already rejected ideas. Something I/someone might do is make some manageable lists of related ideas (say, additions to builtin functions) and post them on python-ideas for discussion and voting. -- Terry Jan Reedy
On 23/07/2010 23:26, Mark Lawrence wrote:
Is there any money to pay for the forthcoming 10th birthday party for this issue? Is the OP still alive?
Kindest regards.
Mark Lawrence.
Hi all, I admit that when I sent this off last night, I felt rather better after for having let off a bit of steam. Whatever, but in future, could you all please be so kind as to take this with a supertanker's worth of salt, I don't really mean it. To repeat myself for those who are not aware, I have long term physical and mental health problems. Thinking about it, by definition there must be others using Python who are in the same league as myself. I do sympathise. I have to admit that this morning I was rather afraid of reading my email, I thought I was going to get a right slagging, and deservedly so. I have been absolutely staggered by the responses that I've received, some of them offline, but I don't think that matters at all. They're all along the lines of:- "great job Mark, keep your chin up, keep plugging" "Thanks, I'd forgotten that one, I'll get it fixed" And so on, and so forth. Nobody has been at all really negative. I think that this is a tremendous way of saying what a wonderful community Python is, long may it be that way. So at least when I rant, everyone to my knowledge sees it as a positive rant, if you can understand that. Perhaps those who frequent c.l.py will understand the negative rants, which fortunately come from a very small minority of people. How can I sum up what I think about Python, that's fairly easy. www.python.org is bookmarked as Home Sweet Home, can I say any more? Thank you all for your kindness, and please note that I've again been plugging away today and rather enjoying myself. Kindest regards. Mark Lawrence. p.s. I don't know much about baseball, but did have a rather wonderful chat at my nephew's wedding last September in Conneticut. Uncle George (who's claim to fame is allegedly providing the optics for a little bit of kit called the Hubble Space Telescope) spent 20 minutes with myself discussing baseball compared to cricket. He was baffled by the fact that 11 players can have so many fielding positions in cricket, but we got there in the end. More importantly, the aerodynamics of the two balls were of particular interest. How sad can you get?
Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> writes:
I admit that when I sent this off last night, I felt rather better after for having let off a bit of steam. […] Nobody has been at all really negative. I think that this is a tremendous way of saying what a wonderful community Python is, long may it be that way. So at least when I rant, everyone to my knowledge sees it as a positive rant, if you can understand that. […]
I'm glad that this was a positive experience in the end for you, but I do wish it could have been done without the rant actually appearing here. In my experience, there will likely be many people who were affected negatively by the message containing that rant and simply didn't say so, but they will enjoy this community less as a result. What I find very helpful in these cases is to put all my vitriol into the rant, bask in it, and then *delete it unsent*. That way, I'm not spreading the bad emotion any further than my desk, and it truly is cathartic so I can sleep soundly. A win all around.
How can I sum up what I think about Python, that's fairly easy. www.python.org is bookmarked as Home Sweet Home, can I say any more? Thank you all for your kindness, and please note that I've again been plugging away today and rather enjoying myself.
Thanks again for your achievements in improving Python, and best wishes in dealing with whatever life deals you. -- \ “Here is a test to see if your mission on earth is finished. If | `\ you are alive, it isn't.” —Francis Bacon | _o__) | Ben Finney
On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 10:45 AM, Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> wrote:
What I find very helpful in these cases is to put all my vitriol into the rant, bask in it, and then *delete it unsent*. That way, I'm not spreading the bad emotion any further than my desk, and it truly is cathartic so I can sleep soundly. A win all around.
I can vouch for the effectiveness of this trick. I can also point to cases where I didn't use it and dealing with the consequences proved to be a lot more hassle than whatever had been irritating me in the first place :)
How can I sum up what I think about Python, that's fairly easy. www.python.org is bookmarked as Home Sweet Home, can I say any more? Thank you all for your kindness, and please note that I've again been plugging away today and rather enjoying myself.
Thanks again for your achievements in improving Python, and best wishes in dealing with whatever life deals you.
Indeed. Cheers, Nick. -- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia
participants (9)
-
"Martin v. Löwis" -
Ben Finney -
Brian Curtin -
Mark Lawrence -
Nick Coghlan -
Paul Moore -
Simon de Vlieger -
Steven D'Aprano -
Terry Reedy