Reading the PEPs is a great way to get a look at how Python has developed and at some of its subtle nuances. It's a great way to compare your great new idea to what the community has seriously considered before. Most of them have information that you won't find consolidated anywhere else.
Quite a few are either open or languishing. The open ones you can have a hand in improving/accepting/rejecting by joining the discussions on python-ideas and python-dev. The dead and not-dead-yet ones you could learn from, and even try to resurrect. For instance, PEP 3150 is currently involved in a lengthy discussion on python-ideas and Nick is talking about revising it now that the moratorium is over. I've read a handful of the PEPs and found every one to be informative and helpful. One problem I have had is that there are so many to read. Finding ones applicable to your needs or interests isn't terribly easy. So in pursuit of an improvement I have started a PEP index on the Python wiki organized by topic. http://wiki.python.org/moin/Topically%20Organized%20PEP%20List I add a few topics already, but haven't indexed many of the standards track PEPs. I would love to see an index like this in PEP 1, but it may not be practical, as the topics in the index can grow pretty dynamically. Maybe a snapshot of the wiki content could be added to PEP 1? Or maybe just a link there to the wiki page? Regardless, I hope everyone finds a topical PEP index useful. -eric
-- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
