[Python-Dev] Encouraging developers

[Tony Meyer]

On 8/03/2007, at 2:42 AM, Paul Moore wrote:
> On 06/03/07, Scott Dial <scott+python-dev at scottdial.com> wrote:
>> Sadly the sf tracker doesn't let you search for "With comments  
>> by". The
>> patch I was making reference to was 1410680. Someone else actually  
>> had
>> wrote a patch that contained bugs and I corrected them. And with  
>> that, I
>> was the last person to comment or review the patch in question.
[...]
> On the other hand, what I've done is similar to what you did - comment
> on someone else's patch. It seems relevant to me that the original
> poster (Tony Meyer) hasn't felt strongly enough to respond on his own
> behalf to comments on his patch. No disrespect to Tony, but I'd argue
> that the implication is that the patch should be rejected because even
> the submitter doesn't care enough to respond to comments!

There is a considerable difference between "doesn't care enough", and  
"has not had time to be able to" (although in this specific case  
"doesn't care enough" is correct).

I have submitted a very small (3?) number of patches, however, I  
suspect that my position is similar to others, so I offer an  
explanation in the hope that it adds value to this thread.

I don't submit patches because I need the problem fixed in the Python  
distribution.  I make the change locally, and either I am  
distributing a frozen application (almost always the case), which  
includes my local fix, or a workaround is made in the application  
source which means that the main Python distribution fix is unneeded  
(e.g. this is what I did with SpamBayes).

The particular patch mentioned is one that uses code (more-or-less)  
from SpamBayes.  SpamBayes has the code - it doesn't matter whether  
it's in the Python distribution or not.  At the time I wrote the  
patch, there were (again) discussions on python-dev about what should  
be done to ConfigParser.  I had some time free in those days, and,  
since I had some code that did more-or-less what Guido indicated was  
the best option, I contributed it (writing unittests, documentation,  
and commenting in the related tickets).

To a certain extent, I considered that my work done.  This was  
something I contributed because many people continually requested it,  
not something I felt a personal need to be added to the distribution  
(as above, that's not a need that I generally feel).

I (much) later got email with patches, and then later email from Mark  
Hammond about the patch (IIRC Mark was looking at it and was thinking  
of fixing it up; I think I forwarded the email I got to him.  OTOH,  
maybe he also sent me fixes - I'm too busy to trawl through email  
archives to figure it out).  At the time, I hoped to fix up the  
errors and submit a revised patch, but my son was born a few weeks  
later and I never found the time.  If the patch had been reviewed  
more quickly, then I probably would have found time to correct it -  
however, everyone else is busy to (if I felt strongly about it, then  
I would have reviewed 5 other patches, as I have in the past, and  
'forced' more quick review, but I did not).

For me, submitting a patch is mostly altruistic - if I do that then  
other people don't also have do the work I did, and hopefully other  
people do that as well, saving me work.  It's not something I  
require, at all.  This isn't something that is easy to make time for.

ISTM that there is value in submitting a patch (including tests and  
documentation, and making appropriate comment in related patches),  
even if that is all that is done (i.e. no follow-up).  If the value  
isn't there without that follow-up 'caring', then that is something  
that should be addressed to 'encourage developers'.  Contributions  
don't only come from people hoping to be 'core' developers some day.

Uncaringly-(with-apologies-to-uncle-timmy),
Tony