[Python-Dev] Developer resources (was Re: Stability and change)

[Michael Hudson]

Tim Peters <tim.one@comcast.net> writes:

> If anyone can make time to write guides, here are some specific points from
> a newer developer after tackling a small Python internals project, extracted
> from one of the emails I'm unlikely ever to answer (there isn't "a crisis"
> here, so it goes to the bottom of the stack):
> 
> """
> I was surprised at how many skills I needed to acquire to get this done:
> 
> + editting .tex help files
> + communicating via SourceForge
> + learning to use CVS
> + finding where to put the unittests
> + learning what a context diff was
> + the ins and outs of METH_O
> + the subtleties of decref
> + the performance costs to tuple formation and arg parsing
> """

Answer to most of these questions should be under
http://www.python.org/dev/ somewhere, I
guess. http://www.python.org/dev/tools.html has a few answers.  Some
belong in the docs.

> The good/bad news is that those things come up soooooo often that within a
> few weeks they'll forget they were ever a mystery.  The barriers to entry
> are many; then again, the kind of code developer Python needs is someone
> obsessed enough to view that as a contemptible challenge <wink>.

These are both good points.

Cheers,
M.

-- 
  "declare"?  my bogometer indicates that you're really programming
  in some other language and trying to force Common Lisp into your
  mindset.  this won't work.            -- Erik Naggum, comp.lang.lisp