[Python-Dev] When is it okay to ``cvs remove``?

[Martin v. Löwis]

Brett Cannon <bac@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> writes:

> OK, I will finish the code then first.  Just to double-check, creating a
> tracker item and initially assigning it to myself will not cause people to
> ignore it since everyone who cares will see the new item when it gets
> mailed to Patches and sees I am asking for other people on other platforms
> beyond OS X to give the code a run, right?

Wrong; I do ignore patches that are assigned.

> And is having new testing suites peer-reviewed a common thing?  Or should
> I only worry about it when there is a slight chance cross-platform issues
> might sprout up from the tests?

I believe the general policy is that if you are certain that a certain
patch is useful and correct, you don't need to post it on SF; that is
the case in particular if you are *the* maintainer of that piece of
code. So if you have doubts, post on SF - but do ask yourself whether
there is anybody who you think could eliminate those doubts; if there
is no true expert around, the patch will stay unreviewed forever.

The policy about beta releases is (or should be) stricter. No new
features, and perhaps no new tests unless they test for a bug that
gets fixed. So in the beta cycle, patches are posted to SF just to
store them there until after the release of Python 2.3.

In the specific case, ask yourself what the cost would be if you
produce a test failure under conditions that you consider obscure.
Will enough people test the test before 2.3 is released? Does the new
test suite behave differently enough from the old one to make false
positives a possibility?

Regards,
Martin