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Guido has been talking about retiring from the dictator role for a bit now. I think that the language is in a spot where it's got a dedicated enough and compet

by kaens 16y ago

Guido has been talking about retiring from the dictator role for a bit now. I think that the language is in a spot where it's got a dedicated enough and competent enough community to move on from the "GVR as benevolent dictator" model of development without sacrificing much. The language and its community is indeed maturing -- in fact, it's one of the most mature communities around in my experience, at least in the "scripting" language world. I think the future is pretty bright for Python. It's not a language that is breaking ridiculous new ground or anything, but it has a nice balance of readability, power, and a fairly sane standard library, which makes it my (and many others) go-to language for a lot of tasks.

sigzero 16y ago
I agree. I think his opening commit bits and assigning a person per PEP is a great idea. That opens the development up and will hopefully maintain a high quality of commits because the SME will be heading up the PEP itself.
agentultra 16y ago
Agreed. I guess being sarcastic isn't a favourable trait on HN. I like everything he said in the message.
- dkarl 16y ago
  One thing that doesn't work well on the internet is poking fun at a group you belong to yourself. In real life, the rules are different when you include yourself in the joke. On the internet, that's theoretically still the case, but in practice people are a lot slower to realize it, and even if you explicitly state it, they may not believe you.
  - bad_user 16y ago
    That's because the Internet is full of trolls and you can't tell the difference between someone poking fun at himself or some idiot who believes what he's saying. September comes every year :)
njharman 16y ago
Actually I dread this. Python is already showing signs of design by committee. Gaining niche new features/constructs/syntax. It use to all fit nicely in my head. That won't be true in a couple years at current bloat increase rate.
- callahad 16y ago
  That's exactly the sort of problem that the language moratorium is supposed to address: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3003/ http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3003/
- jnoller 16y ago
  Really? Which niche things have we added?
  - njharman 16y ago
    Ternary op, with statement, new string formatting/templeting. A few of the standard libs are crap and should not have been added. Not against new stuff ('with' is proly worth it) But the pace of change is too much and accelerating (or was until moritorium). Instead of taking away more than one way to do things such as [] as synonym for list(), more than one way to do things are being added. 3.0 is move in right direction, unfortunately it's a move I have to wait for major communities(Django) to make before I can.
    - jnoller 16y ago
      I disagree that anything you list is a niche feature. As for the standard lib - I'm interested to hear what you think has been added recently which are "crap". Given the amount of debate, discussion, and work that goes into every single language change we make, I'm rather proud that we've largely avoided making a complete mess of things.
j_baker 16y ago
I actually think it would be bad for GvR to retire. The thing that I feel is python's strength is the fact that we don't see "design by committee" very often.
stcredzero 16y ago
I think that the language is in a spot where it's got a dedicated enough and competent enough community to move on from the "GVR as benevolent dictator" model of development From what I've seen, I concur. In fact, I'd say that the community has actually outgrown GVR's level of knowledge about programming language implementation and design years ago. IMHO, the benefits of the "benevolent dictator" model are threefold: - avoid design by committee, keep things simple & clean - clear-cut resolution of group conflicts - cohesive and positive developer culture So long as there is a way to keep or enhance these benefits, Python will do well. It won't be easy!
whyenot 16y ago
One of the things I really admire about Python is the willingness not only to add new features, but also to tidy up and remove elements that are redundant or in hindsight were a bad idea. Doing this, I think, requires strong leadership, it needs someone like GvR who has the respect and political pull to make decisions that aren't going to be popular with everyone . If he's going to step down as "dictator," I hope he chooses a replacement.

by kaens 16y ago

sigzero 16y ago

I agree. I think his opening commit bits and assigning a person per PEP is a great idea. That opens the development up and will hopefully maintain a high quality of commits because the SME will be heading up the PEP itself.

agentultra 16y ago

Agreed. I guess being sarcastic isn't a favourable trait on HN. I like everything he said in the message.

dkarl 16y ago
One thing that doesn't work well on the internet is poking fun at a group you belong to yourself. In real life, the rules are different when you include yourself in the joke. On the internet, that's theoretically still the case, but in practice people are a lot slower to realize it, and even if you explicitly state it, they may not believe you.
- bad_user 16y ago
  That's because the Internet is full of trolls and you can't tell the difference between someone poking fun at himself or some idiot who believes what he's saying. September comes every year :)

njharman 16y ago

Actually I dread this. Python is already showing signs of design by committee. Gaining niche new features/constructs/syntax. It use to all fit nicely in my head. That won't be true in a couple years at current bloat increase rate.

callahad 16y ago
That's exactly the sort of problem that the language moratorium is supposed to address: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3003/ http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3003/
jnoller 16y ago
Really? Which niche things have we added?
- njharman 16y ago
  Ternary op, with statement, new string formatting/templeting. A few of the standard libs are crap and should not have been added. Not against new stuff ('with' is proly worth it) But the pace of change is too much and accelerating (or was until moritorium). Instead of taking away more than one way to do things such as [] as synonym for list(), more than one way to do things are being added. 3.0 is move in right direction, unfortunately it's a move I have to wait for major communities(Django) to make before I can.
  - jnoller 16y ago
    I disagree that anything you list is a niche feature. As for the standard lib - I'm interested to hear what you think has been added recently which are "crap". Given the amount of debate, discussion, and work that goes into every single language change we make, I'm rather proud that we've largely avoided making a complete mess of things.

j_baker 16y ago

I actually think it would be bad for GvR to retire. The thing that I feel is python's strength is the fact that we don't see "design by committee" very often.

stcredzero 16y ago

I think that the language is in a spot where it's got a dedicated enough and competent enough community to move on from the "GVR as benevolent dictator" model of development From what I've seen, I concur. In fact, I'd say that the community has actually outgrown GVR's level of knowledge about programming language implementation and design years ago. IMHO, the benefits of the "benevolent dictator" model are threefold: - avoid design by committee, keep things simple & clean - clear-cut resolution of group conflicts - cohesive and positive developer culture So long as there is a way to keep or enhance these benefits, Python will do well. It won't be easy!

whyenot 16y ago

One of the things I really admire about Python is the willingness not only to add new features, but also to tidy up and remove elements that are redundant or in hindsight were a bad idea. Doing this, I think, requires strong leadership, it needs someone like GvR who has the respect and political pull to make decisions that aren't going to be popular with everyone . If he's going to step down as "dictator," I hope he chooses a replacement.