Thomas Wouters wrote:
> >[T]he editorialization that Python isn't going to be a functional language
> >is both rather inaccurate, misses the real reason for statements, and
> >needlessly alienates people who like functional programming
>  
>  
> >So... maybe Guido or python-dev should write/vet the justifications too. 
>  
>  
>  Oh, none of my examples were anything but that. Particularly the
>  justification. These were just quick ramblings from my side; all actual
>  pronouncements should be made channeling or being Guido, and the editorial
>  review to ease sensitive minds is a group effort.

I was also just using your example as an example ;)  As another similar 
example, around the discussions of the deprecation of map and filter I 
see a lot of misunderstandings.  People confused the deprecation of two 
Lisp functions with Guido wanting to discourage functional program in 
general.  The whole thing is based on several misconceptions, but the 
misunderstanding has become very widespread.

A big part of what happened (I think) is that people who defended the 
decision added editorialization that became confused with the original 
intentions.  And that consisted of things like "functional programming 
is hard/confusing, so it's not appropriate in Python".

I think putting these kinds of decisions on a wiki would generally lead 
to these kinds of confusions.  When rejecting an idea altogether I think 
it should be clear exactly what is being rejected, and not imply that 
anything extra is being rejected.  People read a lot

I think there is a valid perception that the Python community is not 
very open to many ideas about changing the language.  I think that's 
okay -- it's this way *because* of the participation and discussion that 
has occurred in the past, because these are old ideas that have been 
rejected and we are trying to move on.  But it leaves people in an 
awkward situation, because how can you really know what is open for 
discussion?  I don't think people on python-list really know this 
either, so asking there won't clarify that.  I doubt there's general 
consensus on python-dev about what is open for change.

I just don't want people to feel discouraged when they try to contribute 
to the Python community and a PEP 13 could help direct people towards 
areas where their contributions are more likely to be useful.  Also I 
think it is unfair to use python-list to clarify things that python-dev 
is not willing to clarify itself.


-- 
Ian Bicking  |  ianb@[...].com  |  http://blog.ianbicking.org
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