[Python-Dev] Issues not responded to.

[Rustom Mody]

On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 9:37 AM, Carl Meyer <carl at oddbird.net> wrote:

>
> I'm a Django core developer. For the last half-year or so, the Django
> Software Foundation has (for the first time) paid a "Django Fellow" or
> two (currently Tim Graham) to work on core Django. For me the experience
> has been excellent.
>
> So based on my experience with the transition to having a DSF-paid
> Fellow on the Django core team, and having watched important python-dev
> work (e.g. the core workflow stuff) linger due to lack of available
> volunteer time, I'd recommend that python-dev run, not walk, to ask the
> PSF board to fund a similar position for Python core.
>
> Of course there may be differences between the culture of python-dev and
> Django core
>
>


A view from the other side.


Yeah I guess its a good idea for PSF to spend some money to clear 'ugly'
bugs.
Dunno about the proc-n-cons of this so wont get into it.

Instead I'd like to draw attention to the free side of the equation --

What would it take to have more hands with sleeves rolled up and doing
the housecleaning?

Context:
We had a bunch of college students (2nd year Engineering) doing some
projects
with us.
One was inside the CPython sources:
https://github.com/rusimody/l10Python
Their final presentation was last Thursday.

Q: Is there anything in there that can reasonably be a patch for python?
A: Please dont be embarrassing!

However as a student project it was enough for us to say: "Good work!"
Here's an REPL-session to demo:
[Note १२३४५६७८९० is devanagari equivalent of 1234567890]
--------------------------------------------------
Python 3.5.0b2 (default, Jul 30 2015, 19:32:42)
[GCC 4.9.2] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> १२
12
>>> 23 == २३
True
>>> १२ + ३४
46
>>> १२ + 34
46
>>> "12" == "१२"
False
>>> 2 ≤ 3
True
>>> 2 ≠ 3
True
>>> (λ x: x+3)(4)
7
>>> # as a result of which this doesn't work... I did say they are kids!
...
>>> δ = 3
  File "<stdin>", line 1
    δ = 3
    ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>>> {1,2,3} ∩ {2,3,4}
{2, 3}
>>> {1,2,3} ∪ {2,3,4}
{1, 2, 3, 4}
>>> ¬ True
False
>>> Σ([1,2,3,4])
10
>>>
----------------------------------------------
The last is actually more an embarrassment than the δ breaking since
they’ve *changed the lexer* to read the Σ when all that was required was
Σ = sum !!

In short... Kids!

However as kids we could say they are farther to being programmers than
they were before
this -- opening something of the scale of CPython, finding one's way around
and adding/modifying
even the tiniest bit of functionality is a big growing-up step.

Brings me to the point of this mail:

Surely me+my students is not unique configuration -- there must be zillions
of such across the world.
And if inexperienced/kids like us had more help from people like the
members of
this list we would get farther and at least some subset of these may go
on to become actual devs/contributors.

So the request is that some of you give a tiny fraction of your time to
teams just mucking
around in the CPython codebase as a long term investment to producing more
devs even when it is
not directly connected to a possible contribution/patch.

[Yeah I am a lurker on the mentors list but I dont see much *technical*
discussion happening there]

We could actually submit patches.
Just that the priorities of the 3 parties -- teachers, students, devs --
is clearly different:
 - Teachers need to give/create a good learning experience
 - Students need to shine, do well, excel...("show off" is not an
inaccurate description)
 - Devs need the language to progress and bugs to be fixed

Though these priorities are different I believe a symbiosis is possible.
In particular, at least some of the -- for a dev -- 'ugly-bugs'  could be a
challenge in an academic context.

I will be teaching again to more advanced students this time
If I could find a path through bugs of different challenge-levels we may
get some bugs fixed...

Thanks
Rusi



-- 

http://blog.languager.org
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