[Python-Dev] http://bugs.python.org/issue231540 (original) (raw)

Steven D'Aprano steve at pearwood.info
Sat Jul 24 05:45:06 CEST 2010

On Sat, 24 Jul 2010 09:39:49 am Mark Lawrence wrote:

I'm on the verge of giving up my time because the whole system is a complete and utter waste of my time. [...]

Mark, you have entirely avoided the issues Paul raised. It's one thing to fire off a snarky email implying that the Python developers are lazy slackers for allowing an issue to approach ten years old, but Paul's response is valid. What do you suggest should be done with it? Close it as "Won't fix"? That doesn't help anyone. If you have the appropriate patch and unit tests, then great, you should say so. But I believe trying to guilt others into writing the needed tests is neither fair nor effective in the long term.

Snarking publicly might make you feel better, but it makes for an unpleasant community and is likely to alienate more people than it will inspire.

And once again, if some stupid idiot volunteer bothers to put in a patch to the code and/or the unit test, and it sits and rots for five years, is that person likely to come back to Python? Strangely, some do.

I'm not sure that describing people who provide patches as "stupid idiot volunteers" is a good way to motivate more people to provide patches. But either way, I think you answer your own question: apparently some people are understanding of the reasons that issues sometimes get missed or neglected.

-- Steven D'Aprano

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