[Python-Dev] Interesting blog post by Ben Sussman-Collins (original) (raw)

skip at pobox.com skip at pobox.com
Fri Jun 13 18:58:10 CEST 2008 

>> Let's all remember this and make sure not to drop "code bombs" on
>> each other. :-)

Benjamin> Ok! I'd like everybody to know that I'm working on Python
Benjamin> tests on a Bazaar branch. [1] (That's only a bzr co
Benjamin> --lightweight away.) Go ahead and send me angry emails about
Benjamin> how it's totally wrong, and your cat could do better.

No problem, as long as it doesn't take five months and touch every file in the distribution.

I don't think Ben was suggesting there is never a good reason to work in relative isolation. I interpreted it as a rule of thumb for joint projects. In your case, while it can have a wide-ranging effect on the unit test code it's likely that you will be able to manage syncing from trunk/py3k just fine and you already have plenty of examples of how things work now and how they should work when you're done. That said, if you can commit in chunks that would probably still be a win.

Where I work most of the projects are one-person, due largely to the business we are in and thus how management wants things done. I think that contributes to a number of issues, the most problematic being that APIs are developed largely in isolation, often with the needs of only one or two applications in mind. That creates problems for people who come along later and need to use those APIs, only to discover that they are fundamentally flawed in some way.

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