[Python-ideas] Proposal: Moratorium on Python language changes

[geremy condra]

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 11:38 PM, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 8:04 PM, geremy condra <debatem1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The trick is figuring out in advance which is the 300 and which is the
>> 1 or 2. My suggestion is that we allow them to effectively self-select;
>> that we allow those who are skilled enough and patient enough- and
>> who happen to have ideas of unusual merit- to prove that to the
>> Python community. If the results are great, great! Two years down the
>> line Python has a great new feature. If not, oh well- it's not like you
>> are under any obligation to merge it. And there's probably merit in
>> keeping the really wretched ones around too, if only to say "no way,
>> tried it, had to kill it with fire". Either way, Python wins.
>
> I hope so.
>
> But no feature is an island. They must work together. Two or three
> features that are each individually well thought-out and implemented
> in separate branches might still be a disaster when combined.
>
> Also, ten new features, even if they all fit together, may just be too
> much new stuff for the user community to digest at once.
>
> --
> --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)
>

Exactly- with a sandbox in place, the community could look at
real code and evaluate features not just as abstract ideas, but
as real working implementations- a first chance to see how
well they might work in practice, how much code they break,
and how well those changes work together, or, as you point
out, don't.

Geremy Condra