[Python-Dev] Removing IDLE from the standard library

[Brett Cannon]

On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 13:30, R. David Murray <rdmurray at bitdance.com> wrote:
> 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.)
>

I have a grant in to work on Python full-time for 2-3 months with one
of the focus points being improving the developer docs.

-Brett


> 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
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