[Python-Dev] When is it okay to cvs remove? (original) (raw)

Martin v. L�wis martin@v.loewis.de
25 Apr 2003 07:14:51 +0200

Brett Cannon <bac@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> writes:

OK, I will finish the code then first. Just to double-check, creating a tracker item and initially assigning it to myself will not cause people to ignore it since everyone who cares will see the new item when it gets mailed to Patches and sees I am asking for other people on other platforms beyond OS X to give the code a run, right?

Wrong; I do ignore patches that are assigned.

And is having new testing suites peer-reviewed a common thing? Or should I only worry about it when there is a slight chance cross-platform issues might sprout up from the tests?

I believe the general policy is that if you are certain that a certain patch is useful and correct, you don't need to post it on SF; that is the case in particular if you are the maintainer of that piece of code. So if you have doubts, post on SF - but do ask yourself whether there is anybody who you think could eliminate those doubts; if there is no true expert around, the patch will stay unreviewed forever.

The policy about beta releases is (or should be) stricter. No new features, and perhaps no new tests unless they test for a bug that gets fixed. So in the beta cycle, patches are posted to SF just to store them there until after the release of Python 2.3.

In the specific case, ask yourself what the cost would be if you produce a test failure under conditions that you consider obscure. Will enough people test the test before 2.3 is released? Does the new test suite behave differently enough from the old one to make false positives a possibility?

Regards, Martin