Steve Holden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > legitimate. Python's core developers are in a leadership position for > > Python whether they like it or not; and users and volunteers absorb > > the attitudes of the leaders. > > So, what you are saying is because the developers (I explain in > another post on this thread that I'm not a developer, but I *am* a > director for the PSF), having taken the time and trouble to produce > something that you (for want of a better example) find incredibly > useful, are now beholden to improve it still further and make it still > more useful, because otherwise nobody else will feel it necessary to > create and maintain documentation of high quality?
The developers are not beholden to anyone for anything, but if they also act as Python advocates and claiming that Python is good or well-documented software, they're the ones responsible for backing up the claims. If they want to say that it's experimental/unreliable or poorly documented, their responsibility is much lower. But they promote it as being suitable for critical applications. > Bear in mind that the PSF made its very first grants last year. OK, I thought it had been doing stuff like that for longer. My error. > The reason none of those grants was awarded to a documentation > project was that the (volunteer) Grants Committee and helpers didn't > see any documentation projects worthy of support. It looks to me like the approach of calling for random proposals doesn't get the right kind of proposals. The PSF should instead make its own list of stuff it wants done, and call for people to step forward to do those things. Or if there's enough funds, it should hire some full time people and assign tasks to them. > What Python really needs is for Python enthusiasts to understand that > the future of the language is largely in their hands. It's easy to say > "but I can't do this" or "I can't do that". Forget such > negativity. Find something you *can* do to improve Python - document a > module, chair a conference, or (as *you* already do) contribute your > knowledge and experience to c.l.py to improve the level of Python > awareness. No, that's completely wrong; most of the suggestions I've made to improve Python cannot be made by "outsiders". I can't add modules to the stdlib that I think belong there. Only the core developers can do that. I can't add conditional expressions to the language to stop clpy newbies from asking for them practically every other week. Only the BDFL can do that. I can't phone up John Shipman and ask him on behalf of the PSF if he'll re-license his tkinter manual so Python can include it, because only the PSF can do that. You get the idea. Anyway, I don't want to be a Python developer or Python volunteer. I'm just a user. I do volunteer work on other projects that don't happen to be Python. If I had more time or energy available to do more volunteer work, I'd still put it in those other projects and not in Python. Python for me is a tool, like a hammer. If the hammers I use keep breaking or hitting the nails the wrong way, I might contact the manufacturer and urge various improvements, but I'm not interested in their suggestions that I come work on improving the hammers myself. I want to build houses, not make hammers. I'm not bashing Python and I'm happy to be a user, but my volunteering priorities are elsewhere. > I have done all of these things, and I firmly believe that each could > have been done better. Unfortunately those with superior skills chose > not to engage the Python community. Which left it stuck with me. Poor > Python. I don't know that my skills are so superior, but I believe I'm engaging the Python community. > Most of all, realise that there is no "us" and "them". *We* are > "them", and it's up to *us* to accept that and try to improve things. "We" (i.e. "you") is not "me" except on an incidental basis. See above. > Please understand that I don't mean to belittle anyone who has made > any kind of contribution to Python (even Xah Lee has his place, though > I tremble to think so). I just want more Python users to understand > that there are many contributions they could make that are well within > their capabilities, and to get off their butts and start doing > something! Thanks for the pep talk but you're not telling me anything I don't already know. Really, I like your posts and appreciate the work you've done, but that particular line of advice comes across as patronizing. I know what projects I want to allocate my volunteer development time to and Python isn't one of them. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
