[Python-ideas] Python 3.9.9 - The 'I Have A Dream' Version

[Andrew Barnert]

On Wednesday, April 15, 2015 1:27 AM, Simon Kennedy <sffjunkie at gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, 14 April 2015 14:54:51 UTC+1, Andrew Barnert  wrote:
>On Apr 14, 2015, at 05:14, Simon Kennedy <sffj... at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>Call me a fool, but in the vein of the finest of half baked ideas, I present to you an idea that hasn't even decided on the shape of the tin yet.
>>>
>>>
>>>Using a pseudo random selection of ideas set out in various forums
>>>
>>>
>>>* python-dev
>>>* distutils-sig
>>>* python-ideas
>>>* import-sig
>>>
>>>
>>>I present to you, in the linked PDF, a possible Python future.
>>>
>>>
>>>    Python 3.9.9 - The 'I Have A Dream' Version
>>>
>>>
>>>http://www.sffjunkie.co.uk/ files/misc/Python%203.9.9.pdf
>>>http://www.sffjunkie.co.uk/ files/misc/Python%203.9.9. xmind
>>
>>
>>Most of this document seems so ambiguous that it's hard to know how to comment on it.
>>
>>
>
>

>Or perhaps 'nebulous' might be better. However it is an 'ongoing thought experiment'. Not everything is fully fleshed out.

It goes beyond "not fully fleshed out"; most of your document has no interpretable meaning to anyone who's not you. It's not just that we don't have specifics; even to get the basic concept of what a piece of the document means requires significant effort to dig it out of your head, because it exists nowhere else.

For example, how many emails back and forth did it take before anyone understood that your "types" section was trying to catalog the existing ontology of Python's objects, and didn't actually have any proposed changes or any real content (unless "someone should teach me programming language theory, or at least terminology" is a language proposal).

Even when you do seem to have a proposal, it's not clear what it is. It took a half-dozen messages back and forth to get to the idea that your config proposal is for storing lowest-common-denominator content in various different config formats, layered (with command-line flags and env variables) in a way which is similar to layeredconfig but in some unspecified way different? And you're still getting replies that aren't relevant to the idea. There still hasn't been any discussion of anything of substance related to the idea.

And repeating over and over again "it's not complete" whenever anyone challenges anything or even asks a question doesn't help anything, it just makes it even harder to get the information out of you, and therefore less worth trying.

And we're almost not discussing the two most interesting or important ideas in your "dream" (at least I hope the first one wasn't one of your most important ideas), we're discussing two that someone had to pick at random for lack of any better guide to even get started.

If you want your ideas to be discussed, people have to know what the ideas are. You need to take that mental map, plus the context that's in your head, and write up something that suggests the changes you envision. Not a PEP for each one, but a 3-sentence paragraph or 10-point outline for each key idea would be more than sufficient for people to have enough idea of what you're talking about to at least ask the right questions.

A list of a few dozen possible changes, described in just enough detail that people can be intrigued by some of them and know what followup questions to ask, might be useful. This document, on its own, is not.