PEP scepticism

[Barry A. Warsaw]

>>>>> "ph" == phil hunt <philh at comuno.freeserve.co.uk> writes:

    >> he PEP champion (a.k.a. Author) should first ttempt to ascertain
    >> whether the idea is PEP-able.

    ph> How do I ascertain this?

    ph> Who decides whether something is a "small enhancement"?

    ph> The changes i propose would be two separate PEPs (I assume) --
    ph> or would they be added to PEP-42 (which is a list of small
    ph> features)?

If you look at PEP 42, you'll see that most of those "small
enhancements" really fix minor limitations, bugs, or misfeatures in
the implementation, or library.  An example of a PEP-42'ish small
enhancement (that never actually made it to PEP 42) is to extend
{}.update() to accept any "mapping" object instead of just concrete
dictionaries.

Anything that changes the language is almost by definition PEP-able,
and I would place optional-pass and multiline comments squarely in
that category.  Very often, such ideas seem simple on the face of it,
but actually have quite subtle and complex implications on the
language (as you're brief outline of /*...*/ shows!)

-Barry