What has PEP 285 done to us?

[Max M]

Oleg Broytmann wrote:

>    I do not think the PEP *did* damage - it only revealed that our
> community has problems. I don't understand what problems.

The whole bool thing as seen from my point of view happened something 
like this:

Guide posted a PEP. Some people agreed, some disagreed. Personally I 
didn't really care for or against so I just kept quiet.

Then Laura made the (very long) argument against the PEP. When I read it 
I could see that she had some points, but at the same time i thought 
that a boolean type really isn't that hard to fathom as she tried to 
point out. Anyway most of us define our own true=1 false=0 so what was 
wrong with having it in the language?

Due to the very verbose, but rather precise explanation a lot of people 
agreed with her. I still had the feeling that it was a rather small 
problem and though I agreed in her point, I didn't agree with the 
importance of her point.

I once heard a saying "TV is a lot like a microscope. If you enlarge it 
enough, even a breadcrumb seems important" This was how I felt about 
Lauras post.

So when Guido wrote that the post was an overlong piece of FUD I more or 
less agreed. But I was rather surprised by his choice of words, and 
found it to be a rather rude brush-of. And I do believe that if I had 
made a lot of work making an argument like Lauras, that I would feel a 
bit bad about it being turned down that way.

It was hinted that discussions had taken place on python-dev, but I 
don't subscribe to it so all I, and I guess most others, got was the 
short reply from Guido.

So even though I agree that Guido didn't have to reply seperately to 
each of Lauras points, I believe that a longer softer and more humane 
reply would not have hurt in this case.

Online you often need to state what you find obvious so others won't 
miss the crucial.


So perhaps Guido need a little work with the people skills ;-) and the 
rest of us need to act properly, which includes not getting upset when 
others don't.


regards Max M