[stdlib-sig] Evolving the Standard Library

[Michael Foord]

This is a great response from a standard library module maintainer.

Michael

Vinay Sajip wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm all for improving the standard library, and as the author of the logging
> package, have a keen interest in making sure that it is relevant and usable by
> most if not all of the Python community, and that it evolves with changing
> needs. However, this objective is made much harder by what I see as some
> shortcomings in the way we all communicate about these issues. For example, from
> a post earlier in this thread, here are two snippets...
>
> [Jesse]
>
> And SimpleHTTPServer, and logging, and... Armin, some of us agree with
> you, and again, this was part of my driving force in starting the
> other thread proposing the logical break out and subsequent cleanup.
>
> [Armin]
> Of course libraries like `locale` and `logging` are hard to change, but
> it would still be possible.  For `locale` it would probably a useful
>
> Now, it's not hard to find out that I'm the author of the logging package -
> apart from being co-author of the PEP which introduced it, I'm fairly active on
> python-list when logging-related issues crop up, as well as promptly addressing
> issues in the bug tracker. I'm also not that hard to find via Google when you
> search for "python logging".
>
> >From the above snippets, one could infer that both Armin and Jesse have some
> "issues" with Python's logging package. In Brett's informal poll, logging was
> one of the packages which people raised as "needs to change" - it came third in
> the "hall of shame". When Brett posted about it, at
>
> http://sayspy.blogspot.com/2009/07/results-of-informal-poll-about-standard.html
>
> I followed up there at some length. It seems a lot of this stuff gets discussed
> on Twitter, which makes it very easy for meanings to be misinterpreted because
> you can't always be clear about what you mean in 140 chars. (I don't use Twitter
> myself, as for me the noise to signal ratio is far too high.) I was at one point
> given to understand that in some tweet or other, Andrii Mishkovskyi apparently
> offered to rewrite the logging package. Andrii has assured me that he hadn't
> actually meant to cause offence, but surely you can see it comes across as a tad
> impolite, given that the package has an active maintainer.
>
> Jesse's and Armin's comments above epitomise the problem. As far as I know (with
> Google's help), neither has ever bothered to post on python-list, python-dev,
> their own blogs or anywhere else what these "issues" with logging are. Nor has
> either ever contacted me directly. Yet they talk blithely about changing
> logging, as if it has no maintainer. What exactly is the difficulty in
> articulating your issues? Armin has done a fair job on describing bad points
> about other parts of the library, and fair points they are, too. Armin did once
> mention logging in a post about singletons, because logging does contain
> singletons. However, as far as I know it does not cause problems in practice - I
> use it with Django on numerous websites and the Tornado webserver of
> FriendFeed/Facebook uses it too, apparently without the sky falling on its head.
>
> Andrii Mishkovskyi set up a page on the Python wiki,
>
> http://wiki.python.org/moin/LoggingPackage
>
> where he posted his criticisms of the logging package and invited comments.
> Great! Something specific to work on. I responded to all his points, and waited
> for others to weigh in. Since 8 August, when I made my last changes to it, that
> page has not been changed - by Andrii, Jesse or anyone else.
>
> I'm not expecting logging to be anyone's hot button except mine, but I am
> committed to maintaining it. If you're not interested in improving it, don't
> mention it in the offhand way I quoted above - it's not the type of criticism
> that I can work from. And if you are interested in improving it, take the time
> to articulate the issues. For example, I recently came across the Opster library
> (which wraps getopt) and really liked some aspects of it, though at the moment
> argparse is my package of choice for command line parsing. I contacted both
> Steven Bethard, argparse author and Alexander Solovyov, author of Opster, about
> trying to get some synergy going between the two approaches. I did this using
> the argparse Google code project issue tracker (for contact with Steven) and
> (for Alexander) by commenting on his blog entry about Opster. Both contacts have
> been fruitful, at least from my point of view as a user/potential user of their
> work.
>
> This might sound a bit like a rant, but it's not meant to be - I just speak as I
> find. I'm not overly sensitive to criticism about the logging package; in fact I
> welcome *constructive* criticism which can help to improve it. All of you,
> please feel free to head over to Andrii's page to post your criticisms/comments
> there.
>
> If my expectations are that:
>
> - I'm not the dead parrot - think of me more as the elephant in the room. If you
> have issues with my work, talk to me.
> - Use a platform where meanings have the potential to be clear - i.e. let's not
> make being on Twitter a pre-requisite for discourse.
> - Avoid the general snide-sounding "Logging sucks." "Yes, doesn't it just?" kind
> of comments. It's great to vent, but is that the best you want to aim for?
> - Remember the exigencies of backward compatibility. Root and branch changes to
> the public API are clearly out, at least for now - not just for logging but for
> the whole stdlib.
>
> Am I expecting too much?
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Vinay Sajip
>
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