[Python-Dev] Removing IDLE from the standard library

[R. David Murray]

On Sun, 11 Jul 2010 14:59:14 -0400, Glyph Lefkowitz <glyph at twistedmatrix.com> wrote:
> On Jul 11, 2010, at 2:37 PM, Martin v. L=F6wis wrote:
> > I can understand that this is frustrating, but please understand that
> > this is not specific to your patches, or to IDLE. Many other patches  on
> > bugs.python.org remain unreviewed for many years. That's because many of
> > the issues are really tricky, and there are very few people who both
> > have the time and the expertise to evaluate them.
> 
> This problem seems to me to be the root cause here.
> 
> Guido proposes to give someone interested in IDLE commit access, and
> hopefully that will help in this particular area.  But, as I recall, at
> the last language summit there was quite a bit of discussion about how
> to address the broader issue of patches falling into a black hole.  Is
> anybody working on it?

As Martin indicated, the biggest single problem is people hours, and
the only way to address that is to get more people involved.

Jesse has started the sprint sponsorship committee.  Presumably at
least some reviewed and committed core patches will come out of that,
as well as hopefully raising the general activity level.  Jesse's effort
is already bearing fruit in that I think many more people are thinking
about holding sprints than has been true in the past.  ("Oh, you mean *I*
could do that?  Cool.")

I and the other triage people have gotten some new triage people
involved.  We've also gotten some new committers.

Ezio Melotti presented a talk on core development at the Italian
Pycon, and will present it again at EuroPython.  Brian Curtin did
a presentation on bug fixing for the Chicago users group and has
turned his presentation into documentation for the Sprint committee.

Dan Buch will be giving a talk on Python development at PyOhio, and
Catherin Devlin has set up other activities at aimed at introducing
people to core development (her "teach me" session, and I'll be leading
the core sprint after the con).

Hopefully all of these activities will put some more people on track
to helping out with issue review, patch development, and, eventually,
becoming committers.

So yes, things are being done.

Anyone who wants to help out or has idea is, of course, welcome :)
 
> (This seems to me like an area where a judicious application of PSF
> funds might help; if every single bug were actively triaged and
> responded to, even if it weren't reviewed, and patch contributors were
> directed to take specific steps to elicit a response or a review, the
> fact that patch reviews take a while might not be so bad.)

I scanned the commit log, and it looks to me like somewhere around 30
people have been active during the past month.  That's not too bad,
but each of us has specific areas of interest and limited time, and so
bugs outside of those interest areas are more likely to get dropped on
the floor.

So, this is indeed an area where improvement is theoretically possible,
but I'm not sure how we get from here to there.  As you say, one option is
for the PSF to fund people to do it somehow.  (I'd be happy to be one of
those people for some number of hours a week, by the way, but I doubt that
the PSF budget is going to stretch to that kind of ongoing commitment.)

But...if we had *enough* people volunteering, it would indeed be
theoretically possible to consciously spread out the load so that
issues get responded to in a timely fashion with constructive feedback.
I'm not sure how we would structure this, but if someone steps forward to
be organizer/driver, I bet we could come up with something.  (Get lots
of people to *sign up* for a one hour slot of triage work per week?)
I don't think we have enough active volunteers now, but perhaps we
can get there.

It would also be great if every committer could find time to look at
one bug *outside* of their main interest area for every N hours
they spend on their interest area.  (I try to do this, with varying
degrees of success depending on the week.)

--
R. David Murray                                      www.bitdance.com