[Python-Dev] PEP announcements, and summaries

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Andrew Kuchling wrote:
> 
> One thing about the reaction to the 2.1 alphas is that many people
> seem *surprised* by some of the changes, even though PEPs have been
> written, discussed, and mentioned in python-dev summaries.  Maybe the
> PEPs and their status need to be given higher visibility; I'd suggest
> sending a brief note of status changes (new draft PEPs, acceptance,
> rejection) to comp.lang.python.announce.
> 
> Also, I'm wondering if it's worth continuing the python-dev summaries,
> because, while they get a bunch of hits on news sites such as Linux
> Today and may be good PR, I'm not sure that they actually help Python
> development.  They're supposed to let people offer timely comments on
> python-dev discussions while it's still early enough to do some good,
> but that doesn't seem to happen; I don't see python-dev postings that
> began with something like "The last summary mentioned you were talking
> about X. I use X a lot, and here's what I think: ...".  Is anything
> much lost if the summaries cease?

I think that the Python community would lose some touch with
the Python development process and there are currently no other clearly
visible resources which a Python user can link to unless he or
she happens to know of the existence of python-dev.

Some things which could be done to improve this:

* add a link to the python-dev archive directly from www.python.org

* summarize the development process somewhere on python.org and
  add a link "development" to the page titles

* fix the "community" link to point to a page which provides
  links to all the community tools available for Python on the
  web, e.g. Starship, Parnassus, SF-tools, FAQTS, etc.

* add a section "devtools" which points programmers to existing Python
  programming tools such as IDLE, PythonWare, Wing IDE, BlackAdder,
  etc.
  
And while I'm at it :)

* add a section "applications" to produce some more awareness that
  Python is being used in real life applications

* some kind of self-maintained projects page would also be a
  nice thing to have, e.g. a Wiki-style reference to projects
  seeking volunteers to help; this could also be referenced in
  the community section

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
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