On another python project I contribute to (LMFDB) we have for some time only merged commits which satisfy pyflakes 100%. It's a much smaller project than Sage, and when we first started using pyflakes there was quite a lot of work to do, some of which seemed rather unnecessary, but also a lot of actual and potential bugs were discovered and fixed.
Doing the same to Sage would also be a huge amount of work if all done at once, but it could be done incrementally (*). In fact, I already use pyflakes to examine Sage course files I am working on and slip in some changes it prompts as well as everything else in the patch. I know that there are many such tools out there and am not proposing using any of them in particular, just reporting on one situation where the result was positive and where LMFDB developers would not want to put the clock back. This has nothing to do with algorithmic efficiency. John (*) For example in src/sage/schemes/elliptic_curves/*.py there are "only" 138 lines of output from pyflakes now almost all of which would be trivial to fix (things imported but not used, variables assigned to but not used -- which can be an indication of a typo giving a bug. You also see "ell_curve_isogeny.py:1672: undefined name 'InputError'" which I already fixed as part of https://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/23222 . On 2 May 2018 at 14:21, Peter Luschny <peter.lusc...@gmail.com> wrote: > > rjf> The chance that Machine Learning AI programs will find > rjf> important algorithmic efficiency fixes in algebraic > rjf> mathematical implementations seems pretty slim. > > Improving code is something other than improving algorithmic > efficiency of high-level algorithms, of whatever kind. The > latter is certainly not an option yet. But as soon as such > tools look simultaneously on written and compiled code new > opportunities will arise. > > rjf> On the other hand, if you have gobs of code written by high > rjf> school summer interns just learning Python, it is possible > rjf> their code is filled with non-idiomatic and inefficient > rjf> constructions that might be detected/repaired. > > The assumption that only the inexperienced beginner makes > stupid mistakes or writes optimizable code is not likely to be > shared here. But if, as you can seemingly imagine, such can > be pointed to by checkers/optimizers, then the level of > experience of the coder obviously does not matter. > > Between these two extremes are the daily necessaries of the > programmer, and that is what it is all about. In this respect > I find Volker's answer informative and revealing at the same > time. > > vb> First we should add one of the plain old rule-based linters > vb> to our testsuite, imho that would go a long way of maintaining > vb> a consistent code style (and avoid trivial review friction). > > I have expected a lot of people answering Volker: "Hey, you > are right, after the next release let's introduce such tools > before we continue." > > Since such answers did not come in I gladly admit to having > asked the question in the wrong place and at the wrong time. > > The question for me remains whether this reluctance towards > such tools is typical for open-source/academic projects. > Interestingly also Volker writes only about 'code style', not > of other forms of improvements. I have the impression that > the situation in the industry is quite different. > > rjf> It's your choice how to spend your time. Is it worth a try? > > You are absolutely right. I don't know any plausible estimate > that the programming time developers spend for debugging is > less than 50%; many estimates are significantly higher. But > that's an old hat. > > P. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "sage-devel" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
