[Python-Dev] Python 1.6 timing

[Tim Peters]

[David Ascher]
> ...
> Regardless, just like Greg, I'd like to know what a
> pumpkin-holder would mean in the Python world.
>
> I propose that it be called the Oracle instead.  As in,
> whoever is Oracle would get some training with Tim Peters
> and learn how to channel G__do.

I'm afraid that wouldn't work.  The whole secret to channeling Guido in the
*past* was to have been an ABC user:  all you had to do is notice the things
about ABC that you loved and the ones that would drive any sane
*experienced* programmer mad with frustration.  Voila!  Guido's mind is your
mind <wink>.

But the more Python sails into uncharted waters, the less reliable my
Guido-channeling pseudo-skills get.  He is, in Essence, Unfathomable.  Also
indispensable.

> As a Python user, I'd be most comfortable with such a change
> if the Oracle just took over the technical stuff (reviewing
> patches, CVS checkins, running tests, corralling help for
> doc & code, maintaining release notes, building installers,
> etc.), but that the important decisions (e.g. whether to add
> a feature to the core language) would be checked with G__do
> first.

Definitely.  But where do you find someone like that?  It's (or at least
*should* be) several full-time jobs.  Languages like Icon & Scheme do it via
university association (scads of grad student slave labor); REBOL did it by
floating a trendy Internet business plan that actually attracted enough
venture capital to hire about 30 people; Python, unfortunately <wink>, seems
to attract people who already have demanding jobs.

So I see it as an issue of finding warm bodies more than anything else.  In
the absence of funding "real jobs", I really don't see much hope.  Bits &
pieces can be farmed out (e.g., I doubt Guido has had to do any work on the
regular expression code since Andrew arrived), but that's it -- I expect the
past predicts the future quite accurately here.

Certainly much more *could* be "farmed out", but no single volunteer of the
kind Python has attracted so far is going to do a lot on their own month
after month after month.  Even with the best of intentions, their "real
life" will interfere severely more often than not (voice of experience,
there -- and I'd guess it's the same for *all* of us).

if-something-doesn't-change-nothing-will-change<wink>-ly y'rs
    - tim