On 20 July 2015 at 13:34, Ben Finney <ben+pyt...@benfinney.id.au> wrote: >> Again, I'm sorry to pick on one sentence out of context, but it cut >> straight to my biggest fear when doing a commit (on any project) - >> what if, after all the worrying and consideration I put into doing >> this commit, people disagree with me (or worse still, I made a >> mistake)? Will I be able to justify what I decided?
Let me rephrase. What I was trying to say was that justifying the change *to the level needed for the sort of debate we see here* is too high a barrier. Michael is the original developer of mock, is the primary maintainer of it, and apparently had a specific example of the assret misspelling causing problems. And yet the debate still goes on. At what point does that debate stop being a request to justify a change, and turn into unreasonable browbeating over a decision that others don't like? Even the constructive suggestions of an alternative, less fragile API, were responded to (with "it doesn't match the design principles of mock"). And yet there's a tone of "why didn't you think of this approach" in the thread (and my immediate thought to that is why is "because I'm not perfect" not an acceptable response - and so obvious as to not need stating?) Again, I'm not saying that people shouldn't be aware of the responsibility of being a core dev, and wield the authority carefully. But at some point the mailing list commentary stops being a useful check and turns into a demotivating and paralysing force. It's hard to keep that balance correct, but I think that presently there's a shift towards the negative side, which we should recognise and address. > That seems quite healthy to me. On a collaborative project with effects > far beyond oneself, yes, any change *should* be able to be justified > when challenged. Fair. But equally, on a project supported on a volunteer basis by a relatively small group with severe time pressure problems, any challenge should be able to be justified as worth the drain on resource and energy. A quick "is the special-casing of one possible mis-spelling worth it?" question on the tracker is one thing. A week-long, 100-message mailing list thread is another. Somewhere in the middle (but a lot closer to the former) is probably ideal. Paul _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
