[Python-ideas] Documenting Python warts on Stack Overflow

[Victor Stinner]

2012/12/26 anatoly techtonik <techtonik at gmail.com>:
> I am thinking about [python-wart] on SO.

I'm not sure that StackOverflow is the best place for such project.
(Note: please avoid abreviation, not all people know this website.)

> There is no currently a list of
> Python warts, and building a better language is impossible without a clear
> visibility of warts in current implementations.

Sorry, but what is a wart in Python?

> Why Roundup doesn't work ATM.
> - warts are lost among other "won't fix" and "works for me" issues

When an issue is closed with "won't fix", "works for me", "invalid" or
something like this, a comment always explain why. If you don't
understand or such comment is missing, you can ask for more
information.

If you don't agree, the bug tracker is maybe not the right place for
such discussion. The python-ideas mailing list is maybe a better place
:-)

Sometimes, the best thing to do is to propose a patch to enhance the
documentation.

> - no way to edit description to make it more clear

You can add comments, it's almost the same.

> - no voting/stars to percieve how important is this issue

Votes are a trap. It's not how Python is developed. Python core
developers are not paid to work on Python, and so work only on issues
which interest them.

I don't think that votes would help to fix an issue.

If you want an issue to be closed:
- ensure that someone else reproduced it: if not, provide more information
- help to analyze the issue and track the bug in the code
- propose a patch with tests and documentation

> - no comment/noise filtering

I don't have such problem. Can you give an example of issue which
contains many useless comments?

> and the most valuable
> - there is no query to list warts sorted by popularity to explore other
> time-consuming areas of Python you are not aware of, but which can popup one
> day

Sorry, I don't understand, maybe because I don't know what a wart is.

--

If I understood correctly, you would like to list some specific issues
like print() not flushing immediatly stdout if you ask to not write a
newline (print "a", in Python 2 or print("a", end=" ") in Python 3).
If I understood correctly, and if you want to improve Python, you
should help the documentation project. Or if you can build a website
listing such issues *and listing solutions* like calling
sys.stdout.flush() or using print(flush=True) (Python 3.3+) for the
print issue.

A list of such issue without solution doesn't help anyone.

Victor