Re: [python-committers] Vote to promote Stéphane Wirtel as a core dev

2019-03-25 Thread Victor Stinner
Le lun. 25 mars 2019 à 04:58, Tim Peters  a écrit :
> I voted +1.  I haven't had significant interaction with Stéphane but 
> certainly recognized the name and had a favorable impression.  But of my own 
> knowledge, I have no strong opinion either way.  So my +1 was driven 
> primarily by the strong endorsement you gave.

Honestly, such short comment is useful to me if I would be undecided.
I could decide to not follow your vote for example, since you don't
know enough Stéphane nor his work :-)

Having 90% voters who have "no strong opinion either way" or 90% of
voters who have a strong opinion (in either way, +1 or -1) would be
very different.


> Was that worth writing up?  Not to me ;-)  It's probably unrealistic to 
> imagine than _anyone_ in the future will be well known to a majority of 
> then-current core devs.  I only want to hear from those who _do_ have a 
> strong opinion based on significant experience.

Just about the raw numbers, I'm happy to see that the vote got 18
votes in 3 days! I expected less. And I'm never comfortable to see a
candidate promotion accepted or rejected when there are too few votes.
Voting for promotion works :-) It seems like 1 week (including next
weekend) will be enough to get enough votes.


> So I'm disappointed that I've seen nothing from those who voted -1.   In the 
> absence of an explicit message, I can assume a +1 voter is happy enough with 
> what the original proposer said.  But in the absence of any -1 voter 
> explaining their reasoning, I have no idea what to make of it.

In the past, I guess that multiple voters abstained them rather than
voting -1, only because they didn't feel comfortable for whatever
reason to have to justify a -1 in public. I also see 2 "-1" votes on
Stefan Behnel's promotion, and none is justified:
https://discuss.python.org/t/vote-to-promote-stefan-behnel-as-a-core-developer/1054

It's really hard to vote -1 in "front of" a candidate and in public if
there is significant "risk" that the candidate will be promoted and so
will become your peer soon. "Hello new core dev, you don't deserve
your promotion" would not be a warm welcome :-(

I'm surprised because previously the number of "-1" votes was lower.
One obvious explanation is that previously votes were not anonymous. I
guess that it takes time to be used to the new voting method. I guess
that with an anonymous vote, it's just that the result is "more
realistic" to the real opinion and so is more "fair". It's a good
thing that voters feel free to vote, no?

Victor
-- 
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Re: [python-committers] Votes on new core dev candidates

2019-03-25 Thread M.-A. Lemburg
I must say, I'm a bit surprised by the discussion around the voting
process and the candidates.

First, we've been complaining about lack of core devs for a long
time. Now we have two great candidates with proven track record of
contributing to Python and people complain again. As a small group,
we need to attract more capable people and such push back
is not a very productive way of doing so.

Second, as in any vote, no one should feel pushed to comment or
even argue for his or her opinion on a candidate. People nominating
a candidate are the ones who need to write this up, but not the
other group members. A vote to accept someone to a group is a
personal opinion and should be respected as such.

If people feel they need more guidance, they should ask the ones
who nominated the candidates - in public or in private. Because the
candidates themselves cannot comment (at least not on this list;
don't know about discourse), such discussions have to be
moderated by the nominating parties with care.

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Re: [python-committers] Promote Stefan Behnel as a core developer

2019-03-25 Thread Serhiy Storchaka

24.03.19 18:40, Antoine Pitrou пише:

I don't know.  If he's not very active in writing or reviewing PRs, then
perhaps he doesn't _need_ core developer rights.


I understand you. He does not _need_ core developer rights just for 
this. But I have a grounded hope that Stefan can be the next maintainer 
of the xml.etree package (and maybe other XML modules). And I think it 
would be good to have a person who is a core developer of both CPython 
and Cython. We need more tight collaboration with Cython.


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Re: [python-committers] Promote Stefan Behnel as a core developer

2019-03-25 Thread Serhiy Storchaka

24.03.19 20:27, Terry Reedy пише:
Have you asked Stefan if he would like the privilege, accept it, and 
would at least occasionally use it?


Actually it is Stefan who asked me to promote him. So he is definitely 
would like.



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Re: [python-committers] Promote Stefan Behnel as a core developer

2019-03-25 Thread Serhiy Storchaka

24.03.19 23:23, Victor Stinner пише:

Cython became a major project in the Python community (see the PSF
award). I noticed that sometimes Cython is slow to be updated to
support new Python changes (like the new way to store exceptions in
PyThreadState of Python 3.7).


It is not slow. But it took a time to update Cython version in 
dependencies of other projects.



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Re: [python-committers] Votes on new core dev candidates

2019-03-25 Thread Steve Dower

On 25Mar2019 0217, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:

I must say, I'm a bit surprised by the discussion around the voting
process and the candidates.

First, we've been complaining about lack of core devs for a long
time. Now we have two great candidates with proven track record of
contributing to Python and people complain again. As a small group,
we need to attract more capable people and such push back
is not a very productive way of doing so.


To be clear, my pushback (on Discourse, since I can only send email from 
an actual laptop these days but can participate over there from my 
phone) has been against vague nominations, not the individuals themselves.


I'm *very* concerned about the perception of commit rights being 
"awarded" rather than being a added responsibility specific to CPython. 
Nominees should be willing to take on extra responsibility, and 
nominators should be making clear that the nominee is at least somewhat 
proven to be ready for it. Nominations for being a good contributor to 
other projects makes no sense, and nominations without a specific role 
or focus area are also vague enough that I don't see it leading to 
longer standing commitment.


I don't necessarily want to formalize a specific set of rules or things 
that people have to do in order to become a core developer. But I do 
want to avoid creating a culture of "this person is nice and built a 
nice library let's give them commit rights". The PSF already recognizes 
people for these contributions, which is the right way to do it.


If the core committers (via the SC) also want to offer a vote of thanks 
to a community member, then sure, we can do that. But keep it separate 
from "we trust you to modify the language/runtime/core tools without 
oversight".



If people feel they need more guidance, they should ask the ones
who nominated the candidates - in public or in private. Because the
candidates themselves cannot comment (at least not on this list;
don't know about discourse), such discussions have to be
moderated by the nominating parties with care.


Isn't this what's been happening? It certainly has been on Discourse. 
FWIW, it'd be great if there was a way to add someone to a single thread 
so they _could_ post there - Stefan in particular has had to email a few 
of us off-list to respond to our queries (though in doing so has proven 
his commitment, at least as far as I'm concerned, so overall it probably 
worked out better :) ).


Cheers,
STeve
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Re: [python-committers] Votes on new core dev candidates

2019-03-25 Thread M.-A. Lemburg
On 25.03.2019 16:20, Steve Dower wrote:
> On 25Mar2019 0217, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
>> I must say, I'm a bit surprised by the discussion around the voting
>> process and the candidates.
>>
>> First, we've been complaining about lack of core devs for a long
>> time. Now we have two great candidates with proven track record of
>> contributing to Python and people complain again. As a small group,
>> we need to attract more capable people and such push back
>> is not a very productive way of doing so.
> 
> To be clear, my pushback (on Discourse, since I can only send email from
> an actual laptop these days but can participate over there from my
> phone) has been against vague nominations, not the individuals themselves.
> 
> I'm *very* concerned about the perception of commit rights being
> "awarded" rather than being a added responsibility specific to CPython.

I'm not sure where you got that perception from. The two candidates
both want to actively contribute to Python.

It's possible that the nominations did not emphasize this enough, but
that's an issue with the nomination text, not with the person being
nominated.

Yet, the public perception of the discussion is that the persons are
not qualified enough and that's definitely not going to have a
productive effect on getting more people helping.

> Nominees should be willing to take on extra responsibility, and
> nominators should be making clear that the nominee is at least somewhat
> proven to be ready for it. Nominations for being a good contributor to
> other projects makes no sense, and nominations without a specific role
> or focus area are also vague enough that I don't see it leading to
> longer standing commitment.
> 
> I don't necessarily want to formalize a specific set of rules or things
> that people have to do in order to become a core developer. But I do
> want to avoid creating a culture of "this person is nice and built a
> nice library let's give them commit rights". The PSF already recognizes
> people for these contributions, which is the right way to do it.
> 
> If the core committers (via the SC) also want to offer a vote of thanks
> to a community member, then sure, we can do that. But keep it separate
> from "we trust you to modify the language/runtime/core tools without
> oversight".
> 
>> If people feel they need more guidance, they should ask the ones
>> who nominated the candidates - in public or in private. Because the
>> candidates themselves cannot comment (at least not on this list;
>> don't know about discourse), such discussions have to be
>> moderated by the nominating parties with care.
> 
> Isn't this what's been happening? It certainly has been on Discourse.

Not really. I'm not talking about some moderator having to step
in to take action. I'm talking about the nominators actively
supporting the discussion by fixing mistakes in the nomination,
proxying and adding more information (since the candidates cannot
speak for themselves) and helping to clarify misconceptions.

Asking people who have voted -1 or +1 to publicly tell the world why
they did so is not helpful in this respect, since it just creates bias.
What people, who are unsure how to vote, really need, is more
information, not bias.

> FWIW, it'd be great if there was a way to add someone to a single thread
> so they _could_ post there - Stefan in particular has had to email a few
> of us off-list to respond to our queries (though in doing so has proven
> his commitment, at least as far as I'm concerned, so overall it probably
> worked out better :) ).

Indeed, it would be helpful to at least allow the candidate to
post to discourse (technically, it wouldn't be hard to give them
temporary access to this ML either). Having people discuss about
yourself and not being able to participate puts the candidates into a
very odd and vulnerable position, esp. when the discussion is public.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
eGenix.com

Professional Python Services directly from the Experts (#1, Mar 25 2019)
>>> Python Projects, Coaching and Consulting ...  http://www.egenix.com/
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::: We implement business ideas - efficiently in both time and costs :::

   eGenix.com Software, Skills and Services GmbH  Pastor-Loeh-Str.48
D-40764 Langenfeld, Germany. CEO Dipl.-Math. Marc-Andre Lemburg
   Registered at Amtsgericht Duesseldorf: HRB 46611
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  http://www.malemburg.com/

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Re: [python-committers] Votes on new core dev candidates

2019-03-25 Thread Giampaolo Rodola'
On Mon, Mar 25, 2019 at 4:20 PM Steve Dower  wrote:
>
> On 25Mar2019 0217, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:
> > I must say, I'm a bit surprised by the discussion around the voting
> > process and the candidates.
> >
> > First, we've been complaining about lack of core devs for a long
> > time. Now we have two great candidates with proven track record of
> > contributing to Python and people complain again. As a small group,
> > we need to attract more capable people and such push back
> > is not a very productive way of doing so.
>
> To be clear, my pushback (on Discourse, since I can only send email from
> an actual laptop these days but can participate over there from my
> phone) has been against vague nominations, not the individuals themselves.
>
> I'm *very* concerned about the perception of commit rights being
> "awarded" rather than being a added responsibility specific to CPython.
> Nominees should be willing to take on extra responsibility, and
> nominators should be making clear that the nominee is at least somewhat
> proven to be ready for it. Nominations for being a good contributor to
> other projects makes no sense, and nominations without a specific role
> or focus area are also vague enough that I don't see it leading to
> longer standing commitment.

Agreed. The fact that what we do here is voluntary work implies that
the primary factor at play is supposed to be passion more than
recognition. That's why giving the commit bit as an incentive to
attract more workforce is not gonna fly IMO. Not that seeking for
recognition is bad per se, but there's already a tool for that and
which applies to anyone: authoring the contribution (either in
Misc/NEWS or whatsnew). If somebody is passionate to invest his/her
time long enough and with enough competence the step to becoming a
core-dev should be somewhat obvious and happen naturally.

(this is in no way related to the current nominations per se - it's a
general take/note)

--
Giampaolo - http://grodola.blogspot.com
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Re: [python-committers] Votes on new core dev candidates

2019-03-25 Thread Steve Dower

On 25Mar2019 1503, M.-A. Lemburg wrote:

On 25.03.2019 16:20, Steve Dower wrote:

To be clear, my pushback (on Discourse, since I can only send email from
an actual laptop these days but can participate over there from my
phone) has been against vague nominations, not the individuals themselves.

I'm *very* concerned about the perception of commit rights being
"awarded" rather than being a added responsibility specific to CPython.


I'm not sure where you got that perception from. The two candidates
both want to actively contribute to Python.

It's possible that the nominations did not emphasize this enough, but
that's an issue with the nomination text, not with the person being
nominated.


That's literally what I said.


Yet, the public perception of the discussion is that the persons are
not qualified enough and that's definitely not going to have a
productive effect on getting more people helping.


I don't know where you got *this* from. I haven't seen any criticism of 
the candidates themselves - just questions that ought to have been 
answered very easily in the nomination (and were answered almost 
immediately upon request).



Isn't this what's been happening? It certainly has been on Discourse.


Not really. I'm not talking about some moderator having to step
in to take action. I'm talking about the nominators actively
supporting the discussion by fixing mistakes in the nomination,
proxying and adding more information (since the candidates cannot
speak for themselves) and helping to clarify misconceptions.


Um, that's exactly what happened? I don't understand why you're saying 
it didn't (unless someone's edited the history over there between me 
reading it and you reading it).



Asking people who have voted -1 or +1 to publicly tell the world why
they did so is not helpful in this respect, since it just creates bias.
What people, who are unsure how to vote, really need, is more
information, not bias.


This is illogical. Knowing how and why certain people voted is useful 
information when you know that person (and it's also why we generally 
use options like -1, -0, +0, +1, and sometimes +/-100 ;) ). Without this 
added information, the *only* thing we have is bias, and I don't think 
we have a big enough group to average out individual bias in such 
important decisions as this.


Cheers,
Steve
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Re: [python-committers] Vote to promote Stéphane Wirtel as a core dev

2019-03-25 Thread Raymond Hettinger

> On Mar 22, 2019, at 8:34 AM, Victor Stinner  wrote:
> 
> Julien Palard and me (Victor) propose to promote Stéphane Wirtel as
> core developer. We open a vote until March 31 (~one week). "[A
> promotion] is granted by receiving at least two-thirds positive votes
> in a core team vote and no veto by the steering council."
> https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0013/#the-core-team

For some reason, I can't vote on discourse. The message is "you can vote 
because you can't post in this topic."  So please add this post to the tally.

On the plus side, I've enjoyed working with Stéphane Wirtel and think he is a 
great person and Python enthusiast. That said, I think we should wait.  The 
contributions thus far have been very light weight. Also, I've not seen active, 
critical decision making on the bug tracker that would demonstrate an 
understanding of what to approve and what not to approve.

Nominating someone too early puts us all in an awkward position. It's no fun to 
vote with a -1.  If the nomination has been allowed to mature, this could be a 
more positive experience for everyone.  We shouldn't have just one person 
spewing out nominations and doing it prematurely (imo). We had that situation 
happen in the PSF and it quickly degraded as people started nominating their 
friends some of whom had only light associations with Python. In the end, that 
situation necessitated a reorg to where the new standard was zero.  We already 
have a number of core-devs who are core devs in name only, having never made a 
commit or actively participated in developing the core.

Socially, there are two other concerns. One concern is unevenness -- the bar 
was very high for some people and very low for others. It really seems to 
matter who nominated you and who your friends are.  The other concern is 
formation of cliques of friends who approve each other's proposals, but falling 
into groupthink because of light experience and low diversity of ideas.


Raymond


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