[Python-Dev] Developer resources (was Re: Stability and change) (original) (raw)

Michael Hudson mwh@python.net
09 Apr 2002 10:55:40 +0100

Tim Peters <tim.one@comcast.net> writes:

If anyone can make time to write guides, here are some specific points from a newer developer after tackling a small Python internals project, extracted from one of the emails I'm unlikely ever to answer (there isn't "a crisis" here, so it goes to the bottom of the stack):

""" I was surprised at how many skills I needed to acquire to get this done: + editting .tex help files + communicating via SourceForge + learning to use CVS + finding where to put the unittests + learning what a context diff was + the ins and outs of METHO + the subtleties of decref + the performance costs to tuple formation and arg parsing """

Answer to most of these questions should be under http://www.python.org/dev/ somewhere, I guess. http://www.python.org/dev/tools.html has a few answers. Some belong in the docs.

The good/bad news is that those things come up soooooo often that within a few weeks they'll forget they were ever a mystery. The barriers to entry are many; then again, the kind of code developer Python needs is someone obsessed enough to view that as a contemptible challenge .

These are both good points.

Cheers, M.

-- "declare"? my bogometer indicates that you're really programming in some other language and trying to force Common Lisp into your mindset. this won't work. -- Erik Naggum, comp.lang.lisp