[Python-Dev] Encouraging developers

[Neal Norwitz]

On 3/5/07, Scott Dial <scott+python-dev at scottdial.com> wrote:
>
> If nothing else, as an outsider there is no way to know why your patch
> gets ignored while others get swiftly dealt with. Any sort of
> information like this would at least provide more transparency in what
> may appear to be elitest processes.

Have you read the developer FAQ?  http://www.python.org/dev/faq/

If we answered your questions in the FAQ, would that help?  Can you
come up with a list of questions that the FAQ doesn't address?

If you haven't read the FAQ or didn't know it existed, where would you
look for answers?  Where can we make this info available?

I don't believe there is anything elitist about it.  I can see how one
could get many opinions given that it's opaque from the outside.  It's
been described, but I'll re-iterate.  It's completely up to the
reviewers.  There are only about a handful of people that I know of
that review patches.  I was one of those people up until about 2
months ago when I got just too much mail and have to archive most of
the patches mail I get.  I also look through the bugs pretty regularly
to see if there are any very serious or very easy bugs to fix.

When I reviewed patches, I would only look at ones I thought I could
address in however much time I had and felt qualified to apply.  If I
don't know enough about a subject area, I typically don't look.  I
can't tell if a swizzle method would really be appropriate for a
boombah since I didn't even know python had a boombah.  Sometimes I
comment on patches and don't get a response.

We should probably be a lot more aggressive about closing bugs and
patches without response.  Unfortunately many fall into this category.

Other bugs/patches go something like this:  the documentation could be
clearer.  If I understand the current doc, there's no hope of me
making it clearer.  More guidance by others who might be able to
provide concrete options (e.g. specific wording), can allow us to make
a decision.

n