it is hard to make a decision between the pros and cons, when the pros are in a single formal document and the cons are scattered across the internet.
Mark, I support your idea. It is natural for PEP authors to not fully articulate the voices of opposition or counter-proposals. The current process doesn't make it likely that a balanced document is created for decision making purposes. Raymond
On Thu, Jun 25, 2020 at 6:49 PM Raymond Hettinger < raymond.hettinger@gmail.com> wrote:
it is hard to make a decision between the pros and cons, when the pros are in a single formal document and the cons are scattered across the internet.
Mark, I support your idea. It is natural for PEP authors to not fully articulate the voices of opposition or counter-proposals. The current process doesn't make it likely that a balanced document is created for decision making purposes.
On some PEPs in the past I seem to recall we've had the PEP author, or at least editor after the initial draft kicked things off _not_ be among those invested in seeing the PEP be approved. Or maybe I'm conflating the old role of the PEP delegate with the editor? Regardless i don't see how an anti-pep would work much better, but I also don't see anything stopping anyone from trying one. I worry that it'll fragment conversation even more and separate discussions so that everyone is even more confused about overall opinion tallies? one way to find out... -gps
On 26/06/20 2:18 pm, Gregory P. Smith wrote:
Regardless i don't see how an anti-pep would work much better, but I also don't see anything stopping anyone from trying one. I worry that it'll fragment conversation even more and separate discussions so that everyone is even more confused about overall opinion tallies? one way to find out...
Maybe there should be a section in each PEP for counter-arguments that is maintained by another appointed person, independent of the PEP author and its sponsor. The position could be called "Devil's Advocate". -- Greg
On Thu, Jun 25, 2020 at 7:29 PM Gregory P. Smith <greg@krypto.org> wrote:
On Thu, Jun 25, 2020 at 6:49 PM Raymond Hettinger < raymond.hettinger@gmail.com> wrote:
it is hard to make a decision between the pros and cons, when the pros are in a single formal document and the cons are scattered across the internet.
Mark, I support your idea. It is natural for PEP authors to not fully articulate the voices of opposition or counter-proposals. The current process doesn't make it likely that a balanced document is created for decision making purposes.
On some PEPs in the past I seem to recall we've had the PEP author, or at least editor after the initial draft kicked things off _not_ be among those invested in seeing the PEP be approved.
Or maybe I'm conflating the old role of the PEP delegate with the editor?
Nope, we have had some PEPs written to explicitly reject them just for the recordkeeping of the idea. -Brett
Regardless i don't see how an anti-pep would work much better, but I also don't see anything stopping anyone from trying one. I worry that it'll fragment conversation even more and separate discussions so that everyone is even more confused about overall opinion tallies? one way to find out...
-gps
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On Fri, 26 Jun 2020 at 02:42, Raymond Hettinger <raymond.hettinger@gmail.com> wrote:
it is hard to make a decision between the pros and cons, when the pros are in a single formal document and the cons are scattered across the internet.
Mark, I support your idea. It is natural for PEP authors to not fully articulate the voices of opposition or counter-proposals. The current process doesn't make it likely that a balanced document is created for decision making purposes.
I agree that the case against a PEP can often be fragmented and harder to follow than the case *for* the PEP. My impression, though, is that this more often results in PEPs *failing* to get accepted, because there's a general sense of "consensus hasn't been reached" rather than a specific set of problems with the proposal. One point that's not clear - would an Anti-PEP be *required*? If not, what should be the implication of a PEP not having one? That the objections shouldn't matter? That the PEP delegate can skip the work of reviewing discussions? In that case, fear of no-one stepping up to write an Anti-PEP could easily make the debate more contentious, rather than more reasoned. I have two particular issues: 1. Fragmented lack of consensus *can be* a valid problem with a PEP. Expecting a focused document against a PEP may be unreasonable in such cases - no one person may be sufficiently motivated to collect opinions, summarise objections and write a document, but nevertheless the *consensus* may well be against the PEP. Think of this as a variant of "status quo wins" - the onus should not be on the people arguing for "no change" to present a compelling, structured argument. You can of course object to the principle of "status quo wins" - that itself isn't set in stone, but it's a much bigger question about how we want Python to develop. 2. In practice, PEPs that spawn large debates and general, unfocused objections, have a mixed track record. Some get accepted, others get rejected. Unfortunately, it's not immediately obvious that the distinguishing factor is *solely* technical merit. There's a large element of how good authors are at presenting their case, influencing key community members, etc. This proposal seems to me to take that situation and make it worse - now we have both the PEP and its Anti-PEP, each competing not only on technical points, but also on the "people skills" of the respective authors. So while I think we should look at ways of improving this aspect of the PEP process, both to ease the workload of the PEP delegate and to ensure that PEP authors with weaker "people skills" don't get under-represented, I'm not sure the Anti-PEP is the way to go. Paul
participants (5)
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Brett Cannon -
Greg Ewing -
Gregory P. Smith -
Paul Moore -
Raymond Hettinger