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

[geremy condra]

On Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 4:34 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen at xemacs.org> wrote:
> geremy condra writes:
>
>  > Let's just clear up a misconception: I am *for a moratorium*.
>
> I don't think anybody said otherwise.
>
> So, in the meantime, you propose a "sandbox":
>
>  > We allow people to keep coming up with ideas and keep developing
>  > ideas on the off chance that one of them works so well that we want
>  > to integrate it after the moratorium lifts.
>  > There is no obligation here, no demands made on anyone's time who
>  > does not care to take a look at whats happening in the sandbox. In
>  > a few words, there is no cost.
>  >
>  > If done properly
>
> ... it will be work for somebody.<wink> Doing things properly always
> is.  As Nick points out, Mercurial already allows that personal
> sandboxes, quite cheaply.  Why should python.org and/or the PSF
> provide such a sandbox?  I can think of one reason: providing a place
> to showcase new features in variants of the major implementations that
> are in actual use in other projects, and to collect common code of the
> various implementations so it can be shared.  Maybe there's room for
> some speculative features, but I don't yet see that as a primary
> purpose here.
>
>  > As I say, it seems like a good idea to me, and if it turns out
>  > later not to have been it has virtually no consequences.
>
> That would be a shame if it works out poorly partly because it's been
> sold as cheap and risk-free, and as a consequence nobody puts in the
> resources needed to "do it properly".
>

I wouldn't be advocating it if I weren't willing to put in the
resources- but it won't actually work unless it has support
from both the python-dev and python-ideas communities.
Having said that, I do see it as being cheap and risk free
because if it never sees wide use then it will simply fade
into the night, another one in the thousands of places that
people can publish a repository, which is, as Nick and
others have pointed out, the status quo for the duration
of the moratorium.

Geremy Condra