[Python-Dev] The "lazy strings" patch

["Martin v. Löwis"]

Larry Hastings schrieb:
> Anyway, it was my intent to post the patch and see what happened.  Being 
> a first-timer at this, and not having even read the core development 
> mailing lists for very long, I had no idea what to expect.  Though I 
> genuinely didn't expect it to be this brusque.

I could have told you :-) The "problem" really is that you are
suggesting a major, significant change to the implementation of
Python, and one that doesn't fix an obvious bug. The new code
is an order of magnitude more complex than the old one, and the
impact that it will have is unknown - but in the worst case,
it could have serious negative impact, e.g. when the code is
full of errors, and causes Python application to crash in masses.

This is, of course, FUD: it is the fear that this might happen,
the uncertainty about the quality of the code and the doubt
about the viability of the approach.

There are many aspects to such a change, but my experience is
that it primarily takes time. Fredrik Lundh suggested you give
up about Python 2.6, and target Python 3.0 right away; it may
indeed be the case that Python 2.6 is too close for that kind
of change to find enough supporters.

If your primary goal was to contribute to open source, you
might want to look for other areas of Python: there are plenty
of open bugs ("real bugs" :-), unreviewed patches, etc. For
some time, it is more satisfying to work on these, since
the likelihood of success is higher.

Regards,
Martin