On Sun, Dec 12, 2021 at 06:29:17AM +0000, Rob Cliffe via Python-ideas wrote:
That makes no sense to me. If people have alternative proposals, it's up to them to propose them. And to propose them as clearly and explicitly as possible. (Yes, I understand that writing a fully detailed spec is not easy or simple.) It's not Chris A's job to try to clarify what *he thinks they mean*, which is what you appear to be saying (if not, what *are* you saying by "channel others' thinking"?).
It is the PEP author's job to clearly, accurately and fairly discuss any rejected ideas: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0001/#what-belongs-in-a-successful-pep Obviously there is a lot of wiggle-room here, and it is ultimately subjective. And the PEP doesn't need to make the case for the alternatives. But it should mention them, and note that they are rejected, and give reasons why they were rejected. Objective reasons are stronger than subjective, but sometimes the only reason is "because I don't like it". It seems to me that Chris is determined to push forward with his ideas for default expressions, regardless of the mostly-negative feedback on Python-Ideas. I'm also unsure whether he has tried to get any feedback on other forums, such as the Python mailing list, Discuss, Reddit, etc. This is his perogative, of course. Ultimately the PEP author is proposing his vision for the language, and if others fail to convince him that another vision is better, he should push forward with his ideas as they stand, and hope the Steering Council will see things his way. According to my count, the discussion for this PEP has now reached 610 messages over various threads. The most prolific poster is Chris himself, with over 34% of the posts (209); followed by me with 12% (75 posts including this one). There have been 48 people who have commented, with a mean of 12.7 posts per person and median of 2.5. 13 people have posted 10 times or more, and 15 people have posted just once. I think that this shows that: (1) this discussion on Python-Ideas is dominated by a few people; (2) nevertheless, there has been a moderately large number of people who cared enough to post; (3) if we haven't reached a consensus after 600+ posts and two months, we probably aren't going to. Unless Chris wants to try to attract some fresh blood into the discussion by taking it to another forum (say, Reddit's r/python, or Discuss) to see if there are any new ideas and/or consensus, my personal feeling is that this thread is now bogged in the mud and making no progress. Those who like it like it, those who don't don't. -- Steve