[Python-Dev] PEP 350: Codetags

[Josiah Carlson]

Micah Elliott <mde at tracos.org> wrote:
> Josiah> an unofficial spec is sufficient.  See koders.com and search
> Josiah> for 'fixme' to see some common variants.
> 
> But that's the problem -- there are already a bunch of "unofficial"
> specs, which don't serve much purpose as such.  It's a cool site.  I
> spent some time browsing and I do see a lot of codetags in use (many
> thousands in Python code alone; I'm not sure if the number represented
> strings or files).  But I'll argue that this just reinforces the need
> for an *official* spec/guideline, so that the tools can do something
> with them.

Defining a spec for code tags doesn't mean that people will start using
them.  Why?  Because it is a documentation spec.  From my experience,
documentation specs are only adhered to by the organizations (companies,
groups, etc.) which the code is produced by and for, and they generally
define the code specs for their organization.

Further, even if it becomes a spec, it doesn't guarantee implementation
in Python editors (for which you are shooting for). Take a wander
through current implementations of code tags in various editors to get a
feel for what they support.  I've read various posts about what code
tags could support, but not what editors which implement code tags
and/or its variants actually currently support; which is a better
indication of what people want than an informal survey via email of
python-dev, python-list, and/or the PEP submission process.

 - Josiah