I'm working on a patch or two for Python. Now, it's always best to use a source code manager (rcs, whatever) when writing code; in particular it'd make updating to the latest Python trees much easier. But I don't have write access to the Python Subversion repository. So I figured out how to work purely locally with Mercurial.
I wrote a long(ish) how-to blog entry about it, . It's currently the top entry, here: http://www.momentaryfascinations.com/ Figuring out *how* to do it was the hard part; it's actually pretty easy to set up and use. And *very* pleasant to work with! If you're working on patches for Python, I highly recommend you work using something like this. (Maybe even if you *do* have write permission!) I considered posting this in the Python-Dev mailing list, as that's really the target audience, but I wasn't sure the message would be happily received by its subscribers. Cheers, /larry/ -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
