On Fri, Aug 2, 2019 at 7:36 AM Ricky Teachey <ri...@teachey.org> wrote: >> >> But what about `pip install more-itertools`? Hopefully you become >> comfortable with that a lot faster than 3 years in. If not, the packaging >> team will probably be disappointed to hear it… >> >> (I have occasionally had other people insist that I shouldn’t tell users to >> pip install things… ) > > > pip install more-itertools is a GREAT solution for the problem I described, > something I think the average 100% self-taught, > never-used-the-command-line-before, learning-in-their-spare-time beginner > (which is what I was) can get comfortable with within the first month, I'd > say. > > The only problem with it is what you went on to say in your second comment: > I've seen lots of "beginner advice" out there saying that using other > people's code you don't understand is a bad habit and you shouldn't be doing > it. Some of that comes from other communities (I've heard it from javascript > pros I'm friendly with). > > There is SOME truth to this of course, so it helps a lot when the elder > statesfolks "oh when you need to do X, a great 3rd party package for that is > Y." I have never heard of more-itertools until today. I'll definitely be > suggesting others use it, and use it myself. >
There is a LOT of truth to it. If you have a problem, you search the web for it, and the first hit is a pip-installable (or npm-installable or gem-installable etc) package, how do you know whether it's a good solution to your problem or a brand new time sink (or worse)? Sometimes, an unfortunate choice of keyword can mean a completely unknown package ranks higher than a far better one, just because its description happens to match the way you chose to word your problem. The stdlib does reference a small number of third-party packages (requests etc). We don't want to go overboard with that, but I think more-itertools is worth referencing. Maybe there needs to be a second-tier recommendation, where a list of packages can be given that aren't category killers, but have been given the blessing of the Python devs as "this is a good-quality, well-maintained package, and can be depended on"? ChrisA _______________________________________________ Python-ideas mailing list -- python-ideas@python.org To unsubscribe send an email to python-ideas-le...@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-ideas.python.org/ Message archived at https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-ideas@python.org/message/E4PID7UGHRKTYF4Y34GUOEORNXOWDOFO/ Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
