12 ms·

Python post-Guido

189 points by johnramsden 8y ago

metalliqaz 8y ago
Interesting that Guido finally gave up dealing with the haters at roughly the same time that Py2 is finally being replaced by Py3. It's almost as if there is some kind of maturity milestone that has been crossed, and it's time for things to change for good.
- dduarte 8y ago
  https://pythonclock.org/ https://pythonclock.org/
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
jrs95 8y ago
I'm just hoping this leads to a more multiparadigm Python that doesn't have a seemingly irrational fear of FP
- metalliqaz 8y ago
  This comment puzzles me. For one, I can't recall meeting a stong FP proponent that accepts anything less than a language designed from the ground-up to be true FP. Second, how is Python afraid of FP? This[1] document has been part of the Python docs for as long as I can remember. [1] https://docs.python.org/2/howto/functional.html https://docs.python.org/2/howto/functional.html
  - bluecalm 8y ago
    I love functional style and I think Python is very friendly to that style. You can make pure functions. You can use classes as store of values. Pass values and functions around as they are first class citizens. That you need some local state to implement a pure function isn't a problem as you can limit it to very simple things. Anonymous functions are not something you need either, just give it a name and pass it, wtp? I agree most of the "Python is not functional enough" criticism comes from people who just want as pure FP as possible.
  - PurpleRamen 8y ago
    Some people think, because python is not fully embracing functional programming, it must fear it. Because anything less than 100% functional is not good enough. Namly the limited lambdas are always brought as a reason.
    - bad_user 8y ago
      Many programming languages these days have FP tendencies. However I can barely think of another mainstream and high level language that is more anti-FP than Python. And lambdas, in spite of popular opinion, have nothing to do with it ;-) (Actually I can think of another language that is more anti-FP than Python and that would be Go ... people saying Go is “pythonic” have it right)
      - joshuamorton 8y ago
        I'd be curious which of JavaScript, perl, js, and Ruby (and hell, go or Java, which are often considered high level) is more friendly to fp than python, and why, obviously. That's pretty much every other mainstream high level language ;) I've never heard anyone call go pythonic.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        > I'd be curious which of JavaScript, perl, js, and Ruby (and hell, go or Java, which are often considered high level) is more friendly to fp than python, and why, obviously. JS (which you listed twice), Perl (5 or 6), and in some ways Ruby (which is a mixed bag, because it doesn't actually have functions per se, but even so is in many ways more friendly to functional style than Python.) Being expression-oriented languages with full support for anonymous functions (callables in Ruby) and non-awkward creation of full (rather than read-only) closures are the main common factors.
        joshuamorton 8y ago
        Sorry, php, not js the second time. I'm not sure what you mean by read only closures, unless you mean a close which can later modify the enclosing scope, which python supports via the nonlocal keyword but also is decidedly bad, and not something I've ever before heard of as an fp concept. And as far as I can tell, your entire argument reduces to better lambdas. Which is what you said it wouldn't be. I feel misled. Oh wait you're a different user. Still this point stands. I wouldn't have responded if the expected answer was "better lambdas". You can do better. I guess the next important question is "what are the things you feel make a language functional, and why are those things valuable"? There are lots of aspects of functional programming that are good, I personally agree that anonymous functions are not one of them, especially when you have no need for callbacks (python doesn't really). And it's very possible to write functional code, imo, without anonymous functions. Why do you disagree.
  - bunderbunder 8y ago
    There has been some pushback on the inclusion of common functional idioms in Python, though. For example, GvR has expressed regret about allowing map, filter, etc. into Python, on the grounds that comprehensions are a more Pythonic way to accomplish most of the same stuff.
    - bluecalm 8y ago
      Aren't map and filter just redundant if you accept list comprehension as Pythonic thing to do?
      - jrs95 8y ago
        Maybe just map and filter but there are far more operations that can be done on these types than what is cleanly expressed in a comprehension.
    - metalliqaz 8y ago
      I assume it's because of this... Zen of Python: There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
      - bunderbunder 8y ago
        True, but, if it were just that, I would expect Python to only have the map, filter, etc. functions, which have been in there since 1.0. List comprehensions were introduced much later, in version 2. That makes comprehensions the 2nd way to do it. They're also less obvious in my book, since their readability tends to drop precipitously once you start adding multiple "for" clauses to one.
    - somenewacc 8y ago
      But comprehensions are also a functional idiom.
      - lmm 8y ago
        The version Python has is awkward to work with, to the point that many Haskell programmers don't even realise it exists. The "do notation" style is much clearer than the "comprehension" style; unfortunately Python has no equivalent.
  - jrs95 8y ago
    I’m not a strong FP proponent per se. I just really enjoy using things like Java 8 Streams, Lodash/Ramda, etc. Comprehensions are nice but they have a more limited scope than functions. Honestly the same can be said for decorators. Useful, but ultimately not much more useful than a plain old higher order function.
- bad_user 8y ago
  Python will never be FP friendly, even if there have been certain attempts in the past. The reason is that at its core Python is very statement and mutation oriented, instead of being expression oriented and to prefer immutability by default, like all FP languages are. People feel the need for example for anonymous functions that support statements but Python’s lambdas only support expressions and it turns out there’s not much you can do with those in Python. It’s the reason for why over the years Python acquired features for use cases that can normally be solved via higher order functions in other languages like Ruby. I think it is time to accept Python for what it is. A dirty, mutable language that gets the job done in certain contexts. Trying to change it I think does more harm than good.
  - Areading314 8y ago
    As a corollary I think the lack of adoption of 'pure' languages, even after decades of trying, is evidence that they are just less productive than 'dirty' languages like python. Libraries and community are just much more important than the language itself.
    - nepeckman 8y ago
      I'd argue that the more pure FP languages have a higher learning curve, but that doesn't equate lower productivity. Plenty of people are productive in FP languages, and there are a good number of FP languages with decent adoption throughout the industry. They might not be as widely adopted as Python, but that's because it's really easy to learn Python.
      - throwaway5752 8y ago
        My experience is that pure FP languages have enormous individual productivity but that comes at the expense of lower team productivity/collaboration (my experience, even if not universal or even correct, is that in practice they are fairly idiomatic from developer to developer) and maintenance over time can be an issue for similar reasons. For simple systems and system management scripting, I will take the simpler language. That said, I'd want a very high concurrence system written in a function language over Python any day (gil notwithstanding). But I'm fine with Python not being that language.
- rkangel 8y ago
  I'm not a fan of 'multiparadigm'. As another comment on this branch says, the Zen of Python covers this quite well: > There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it There are already 20 different ways of solving any given problem or of coding any given solution. At least if a single paradigm is used, then those familiar with it are unlikely to run into big surprises about how things are implemented. If your developers are used to an imperative style, a chunk of code in the middle of the codebase written in a strongly functional style is very difficult to comprehend. In one tool I wrote for work, I use function application to progressively transform a stream of events. It's a beautiful, neat solution to the problem, but confuses the hell out of everyone else because they've never written any Haskell. There are other ways to implement this that are just as clear and abstracted and maybe they take slightly more code, but it is code that is more maintainable by everyone else. Good code to me is not that which looks like it was coded by a genius, but that which looks like any child could have written it. For some code this is very hard, but I find it easier in Python than other languages. The more 'choices' that you have, the more inconsistency there will be about who chooses what. There is obviously a tradeoff here with giving developers the right tools for the job, but list comprehensions are a great example of how you can do that without having to use a different paradigm.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >> There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it And then it offers 20 equally good ways: generators vs comprehensions vs iterators vs foreach loops vs map and filter, async vs threadpools vs processpools, and so on.
    - pfranz 8y ago
      It's tough to adhere to that principle, but its nice to see as a focus. Python wasn't even object oriented originally (and a lot of their standard library shows it). Guido has said he wishes he never added functional concepts like map and filter. Deprecating things hasn't been taken too well by the community.
      - 8y ago
- rdtsc 8y ago
  I am a fan of dynamic functional languages, I use them more than I use Python anyway. But I think Python should stick to being Pythonic. There should be less ways of doing the same thing not more. I don't even like the new assignment PEP because it just adds more complexity and more ways of doing the same thing. And knowing that it was the straw that broke the camel's back and pushed Guido away, makes me like it even less.
  - bluecalm 8y ago
    There wasn't a way of doing list comprehensions where you use the same expression on the left and right side. You needed a for loop with a temporary variable to achieve it. I think it's much more useful than map/filter for example as those are redundant if you use list comprehensions.
  - jrs95 8y ago
    I'm not talking about anything crazy here, just don't make map(), filter(), reduce() etc second class citizens and maybe even support tail call optimization. Honestly I don't know why comprehensions are so popular either, it's a slightly more convenient but less powerful construct than pure functions.
  - ergothus 8y ago
    ...but people hating on the PEP (and refusing to accept their concerns had been considered) was the reason it drove him over the edge, so your post lamenting the issue is at the same time demonstrating the issue.
bluecalm 8y ago
I hope for another BDFL or at least a king. Democracy is going to be a mess. Choose someone who wants to do it, agrees with Guido on as many as possible fundamental things and isn't too much of a revulotionary please.
- duckerude 8y ago
  This is speculative, but project dictators might be too risky for succession. They can be good at managing the project, they can be bad at managing the project, and there's no reliable way to tell in advance. Guido was good. If he hadn't been good, Python wouldn't have caught on like it did. If someone who starts a small project turns out to be bad at it, that's no great loss - there are a lot of small projects. You don't see the ones that fail. But if you put someone in charge of a large project and they mess it up, that's a large problem. It's better to go for a safe option with a reasonable expected value than for the option with the highest best-case value.
  - d33 8y ago
    One can always fork.
    - jinpan 8y ago
      IMHO, it is too soon for Python 4.
Alir3z4 8y ago
Please no democracy, not a voting madness or anything like groups decision making. Just another BDFL, that's it.
- roter 8y ago
  I like the idea of a triumvirate, three people with a shared vision but perhaps with unique skills [0]. Hopefully all sharing a benevolent tendency to avoid things going pear-shaped [1]. [0] https://lwn.net/Articles/759798/ https://lwn.net/Articles/759798/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Triumvirate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Triumvirate
  - metalliqaz 8y ago
    Honestly I think the idea of a council of four is better. If they can't come to an agreement, then Python isn't changed.
  - nickelcitymario 8y ago
    You know the triumvirates resulted in the fall of the republic, right? Power doesn't like to be shared...
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > You know the triumvirates resulted in the fall of the republic, right? I think its more defensible to stay they were symptoms of the ongoing collapse than causes.
    - felipellrocha 8y ago
      You could say the same thing about dictators. The problem is not the power structure, but whether they are meant to be benevolent or not. You could also say that a triumvirate is better than a dictatorship since there would be a small system of checks in place (not saying that Guido was being pushy with his position of BDFL, but it would be nice to see other ideas having as much ground as one person's ideas).
    - 8y ago
LyndsySimon 8y ago
OK, now that's cool. I wonder if Christian Heimes saw my post† on the HN topic on the 12th, or if we both proposed the idea independently? †: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17516186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17516186
spenrose 8y ago
AFAICT, this article repeats the disaster of PEP572: it makes almost no effort to discuss how Python is used. Specifically, it implicitly holds that the BDFL + core contributors model that served Python so beautifully from, say, 1992 to 2002 when Python had perhaps 2 orders of magnitude fewer users than it does now and ran on—how can we know—3? 4? orders of magnitude fewer machines, should be taken for granted as the default governance mechanism for Python in 2018, when it is a key part of the world's infrastructure. I have no idea how to manage something as important as Python, but reading python-dev and seeing the brilliant Tim Peters, who was indispensable to Python's early growth, argue for a significant change in the language's semantics by using it to refactor a few samples from his personal code base, strikes me as prima facie evidence that neither do the core contributors. Millions. Of. People. Write. Python. That. Affects. The. Lives. Of. Billions. Of. People. Start there.
- whyever 8y ago
  > Millions. Of. People. Write. Python. That. Affects. The. Lives. Of. Billions. Of. People. Start there. I don't think this is how open source development works. Probably most of the core contributors are doing it for pleasure, not for satisfying the needs of the users.
  - spenrose 8y ago
    Thanks, that's a much improved way of expressing my point.
  - newen 8y ago
    This idea that are large and influential project like Python is just the same as a hobby project I put on github and do in my spare time is ridculous. I am pretty sure most of the core contributors of Python are doing it as part of their 9-5 job. Then there is the implication that because they are doing it for pleasure, they don't owe anything to anyone. It's ridculous. This software affects millions of people and it's not a dumb hobby project.
    - msla 8y ago
syvex 8y ago
Guido's leadership has really been what's kept Python so consistent during its evolution. This is in contrast to languages governed by committee or corporation. Hopefully Python continues to be guided in this manner, and Guido can help rally the Python community around a successor.
richiverse 8y ago
Why not try a president of Python every 4 years with no term limits? Similar to BDFL, except there are chances for change and a consistent voice throughout a term. Voters would consist of core devs and PSF.
- toyg 8y ago
  Basically the Debian model. It has some drawbacks.
deleted 8y ago
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deleted 8y ago
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vectorEQ 8y ago
Dennis: What I object to is you automatically treatin' me like an inferior. Arthur: Well, I am king. Dennis: Oh, king, eh? Very nice. And how'd you get that, then? By exploiting the workers! By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society! If there's ever going to be any progress-- Dennis: We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as sort-of-executive officer for the week-- Arthur: Yes. Dennis: But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting-- Arthur: Yes, I see. Dennis: By a simple majority, in the case of purely internal affairs-- Arthur: [getting bored] Be quiet. Dennis: But by a two thirds majority, in the case of more major-- Arthur: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet! Dennis' Mother: Order, eh? Who does he think he is? Arthur: I am your king! Dennis' Mother: Well I didn't vote for you. Arthur: You don't vote for kings! Dennis' Mother: How'd you become king, then? Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, [Angel chorus begins singing in background] her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. [Angel chorus ends] That is why I am your king! Dennis: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. Arthur: Be quiet! Dennis: You can't expect to wield supreme power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you! Arthur: Shut up! Dennis: I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away! Arthur: Shut up! Will you shut up?! [Grabs Dennis and shakes him] Dennis: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system! Arthur: Shut up! Dennis: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

189 points by johnramsden 8y ago

Interesting that Guido finally gave up dealing with the haters at roughly the same time that Py2 is finally being replaced by Py3. It's almost as if there is some kind of maturity milestone that has been crossed, and it's time for things to change for good.

dduarte 8y ago
https://pythonclock.org/ https://pythonclock.org/
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

jrs95 8y ago

I'm just hoping this leads to a more multiparadigm Python that doesn't have a seemingly irrational fear of FP

metalliqaz 8y ago
This comment puzzles me. For one, I can't recall meeting a stong FP proponent that accepts anything less than a language designed from the ground-up to be true FP. Second, how is Python afraid of FP? This[1] document has been part of the Python docs for as long as I can remember. [1] https://docs.python.org/2/howto/functional.html https://docs.python.org/2/howto/functional.html
- bluecalm 8y ago
  I love functional style and I think Python is very friendly to that style. You can make pure functions. You can use classes as store of values. Pass values and functions around as they are first class citizens. That you need some local state to implement a pure function isn't a problem as you can limit it to very simple things. Anonymous functions are not something you need either, just give it a name and pass it, wtp? I agree most of the "Python is not functional enough" criticism comes from people who just want as pure FP as possible.
- PurpleRamen 8y ago
  Some people think, because python is not fully embracing functional programming, it must fear it. Because anything less than 100% functional is not good enough. Namly the limited lambdas are always brought as a reason.
  - bad_user 8y ago
    Many programming languages these days have FP tendencies. However I can barely think of another mainstream and high level language that is more anti-FP than Python. And lambdas, in spite of popular opinion, have nothing to do with it ;-) (Actually I can think of another language that is more anti-FP than Python and that would be Go ... people saying Go is “pythonic” have it right)
    - joshuamorton 8y ago
      I'd be curious which of JavaScript, perl, js, and Ruby (and hell, go or Java, which are often considered high level) is more friendly to fp than python, and why, obviously. That's pretty much every other mainstream high level language ;) I've never heard anyone call go pythonic.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > I'd be curious which of JavaScript, perl, js, and Ruby (and hell, go or Java, which are often considered high level) is more friendly to fp than python, and why, obviously. JS (which you listed twice), Perl (5 or 6), and in some ways Ruby (which is a mixed bag, because it doesn't actually have functions per se, but even so is in many ways more friendly to functional style than Python.) Being expression-oriented languages with full support for anonymous functions (callables in Ruby) and non-awkward creation of full (rather than read-only) closures are the main common factors.
        joshuamorton 8y ago
        Sorry, php, not js the second time. I'm not sure what you mean by read only closures, unless you mean a close which can later modify the enclosing scope, which python supports via the nonlocal keyword but also is decidedly bad, and not something I've ever before heard of as an fp concept. And as far as I can tell, your entire argument reduces to better lambdas. Which is what you said it wouldn't be. I feel misled. Oh wait you're a different user. Still this point stands. I wouldn't have responded if the expected answer was "better lambdas". You can do better. I guess the next important question is "what are the things you feel make a language functional, and why are those things valuable"? There are lots of aspects of functional programming that are good, I personally agree that anonymous functions are not one of them, especially when you have no need for callbacks (python doesn't really). And it's very possible to write functional code, imo, without anonymous functions. Why do you disagree.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  There has been some pushback on the inclusion of common functional idioms in Python, though. For example, GvR has expressed regret about allowing map, filter, etc. into Python, on the grounds that comprehensions are a more Pythonic way to accomplish most of the same stuff.
  - bluecalm 8y ago
    Aren't map and filter just redundant if you accept list comprehension as Pythonic thing to do?
    - jrs95 8y ago
      Maybe just map and filter but there are far more operations that can be done on these types than what is cleanly expressed in a comprehension.
  - metalliqaz 8y ago
    I assume it's because of this... Zen of Python: There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
    - bunderbunder 8y ago
      True, but, if it were just that, I would expect Python to only have the map, filter, etc. functions, which have been in there since 1.0. List comprehensions were introduced much later, in version 2. That makes comprehensions the 2nd way to do it. They're also less obvious in my book, since their readability tends to drop precipitously once you start adding multiple "for" clauses to one.
  - somenewacc 8y ago
    But comprehensions are also a functional idiom.
    - lmm 8y ago
      The version Python has is awkward to work with, to the point that many Haskell programmers don't even realise it exists. The "do notation" style is much clearer than the "comprehension" style; unfortunately Python has no equivalent.
- jrs95 8y ago
  I’m not a strong FP proponent per se. I just really enjoy using things like Java 8 Streams, Lodash/Ramda, etc. Comprehensions are nice but they have a more limited scope than functions. Honestly the same can be said for decorators. Useful, but ultimately not much more useful than a plain old higher order function.
bad_user 8y ago
Python will never be FP friendly, even if there have been certain attempts in the past. The reason is that at its core Python is very statement and mutation oriented, instead of being expression oriented and to prefer immutability by default, like all FP languages are. People feel the need for example for anonymous functions that support statements but Python’s lambdas only support expressions and it turns out there’s not much you can do with those in Python. It’s the reason for why over the years Python acquired features for use cases that can normally be solved via higher order functions in other languages like Ruby. I think it is time to accept Python for what it is. A dirty, mutable language that gets the job done in certain contexts. Trying to change it I think does more harm than good.
- Areading314 8y ago
  As a corollary I think the lack of adoption of 'pure' languages, even after decades of trying, is evidence that they are just less productive than 'dirty' languages like python. Libraries and community are just much more important than the language itself.
  - nepeckman 8y ago
    I'd argue that the more pure FP languages have a higher learning curve, but that doesn't equate lower productivity. Plenty of people are productive in FP languages, and there are a good number of FP languages with decent adoption throughout the industry. They might not be as widely adopted as Python, but that's because it's really easy to learn Python.
    - throwaway5752 8y ago
      My experience is that pure FP languages have enormous individual productivity but that comes at the expense of lower team productivity/collaboration (my experience, even if not universal or even correct, is that in practice they are fairly idiomatic from developer to developer) and maintenance over time can be an issue for similar reasons. For simple systems and system management scripting, I will take the simpler language. That said, I'd want a very high concurrence system written in a function language over Python any day (gil notwithstanding). But I'm fine with Python not being that language.
rkangel 8y ago
I'm not a fan of 'multiparadigm'. As another comment on this branch says, the Zen of Python covers this quite well: > There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it There are already 20 different ways of solving any given problem or of coding any given solution. At least if a single paradigm is used, then those familiar with it are unlikely to run into big surprises about how things are implemented. If your developers are used to an imperative style, a chunk of code in the middle of the codebase written in a strongly functional style is very difficult to comprehend. In one tool I wrote for work, I use function application to progressively transform a stream of events. It's a beautiful, neat solution to the problem, but confuses the hell out of everyone else because they've never written any Haskell. There are other ways to implement this that are just as clear and abstracted and maybe they take slightly more code, but it is code that is more maintainable by everyone else. Good code to me is not that which looks like it was coded by a genius, but that which looks like any child could have written it. For some code this is very hard, but I find it easier in Python than other languages. The more 'choices' that you have, the more inconsistency there will be about who chooses what. There is obviously a tradeoff here with giving developers the right tools for the job, but list comprehensions are a great example of how you can do that without having to use a different paradigm.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >> There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it And then it offers 20 equally good ways: generators vs comprehensions vs iterators vs foreach loops vs map and filter, async vs threadpools vs processpools, and so on.
  - pfranz 8y ago
    It's tough to adhere to that principle, but its nice to see as a focus. Python wasn't even object oriented originally (and a lot of their standard library shows it). Guido has said he wishes he never added functional concepts like map and filter. Deprecating things hasn't been taken too well by the community.
    - 8y ago
rdtsc 8y ago
I am a fan of dynamic functional languages, I use them more than I use Python anyway. But I think Python should stick to being Pythonic. There should be less ways of doing the same thing not more. I don't even like the new assignment PEP because it just adds more complexity and more ways of doing the same thing. And knowing that it was the straw that broke the camel's back and pushed Guido away, makes me like it even less.
- bluecalm 8y ago
  There wasn't a way of doing list comprehensions where you use the same expression on the left and right side. You needed a for loop with a temporary variable to achieve it. I think it's much more useful than map/filter for example as those are redundant if you use list comprehensions.
- jrs95 8y ago
  I'm not talking about anything crazy here, just don't make map(), filter(), reduce() etc second class citizens and maybe even support tail call optimization. Honestly I don't know why comprehensions are so popular either, it's a slightly more convenient but less powerful construct than pure functions.
- ergothus 8y ago
  ...but people hating on the PEP (and refusing to accept their concerns had been considered) was the reason it drove him over the edge, so your post lamenting the issue is at the same time demonstrating the issue.

bluecalm 8y ago

I hope for another BDFL or at least a king. Democracy is going to be a mess. Choose someone who wants to do it, agrees with Guido on as many as possible fundamental things and isn't too much of a revulotionary please.

duckerude 8y ago
This is speculative, but project dictators might be too risky for succession. They can be good at managing the project, they can be bad at managing the project, and there's no reliable way to tell in advance. Guido was good. If he hadn't been good, Python wouldn't have caught on like it did. If someone who starts a small project turns out to be bad at it, that's no great loss - there are a lot of small projects. You don't see the ones that fail. But if you put someone in charge of a large project and they mess it up, that's a large problem. It's better to go for a safe option with a reasonable expected value than for the option with the highest best-case value.
- d33 8y ago
  One can always fork.
  - jinpan 8y ago
    IMHO, it is too soon for Python 4.

Alir3z4 8y ago

Please no democracy, not a voting madness or anything like groups decision making. Just another BDFL, that's it.

roter 8y ago
I like the idea of a triumvirate, three people with a shared vision but perhaps with unique skills [0]. Hopefully all sharing a benevolent tendency to avoid things going pear-shaped [1]. [0] https://lwn.net/Articles/759798/ https://lwn.net/Articles/759798/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Triumvirate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Triumvirate
- metalliqaz 8y ago
  Honestly I think the idea of a council of four is better. If they can't come to an agreement, then Python isn't changed.
- nickelcitymario 8y ago
  You know the triumvirates resulted in the fall of the republic, right? Power doesn't like to be shared...
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > You know the triumvirates resulted in the fall of the republic, right? I think its more defensible to stay they were symptoms of the ongoing collapse than causes.
  - felipellrocha 8y ago
    You could say the same thing about dictators. The problem is not the power structure, but whether they are meant to be benevolent or not. You could also say that a triumvirate is better than a dictatorship since there would be a small system of checks in place (not saying that Guido was being pushy with his position of BDFL, but it would be nice to see other ideas having as much ground as one person's ideas).
  - 8y ago

LyndsySimon 8y ago

OK, now that's cool. I wonder if Christian Heimes saw my post† on the HN topic on the 12th, or if we both proposed the idea independently? †: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17516186 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17516186

spenrose 8y ago

AFAICT, this article repeats the disaster of PEP572: it makes almost no effort to discuss how Python is used. Specifically, it implicitly holds that the BDFL + core contributors model that served Python so beautifully from, say, 1992 to 2002 when Python had perhaps 2 orders of magnitude fewer users than it does now and ran on—how can we know—3? 4? orders of magnitude fewer machines, should be taken for granted as the default governance mechanism for Python in 2018, when it is a key part of the world's infrastructure. I have no idea how to manage something as important as Python, but reading python-dev and seeing the brilliant Tim Peters, who was indispensable to Python's early growth, argue for a significant change in the language's semantics by using it to refactor a few samples from his personal code base, strikes me as prima facie evidence that neither do the core contributors. Millions. Of. People. Write. Python. That. Affects. The. Lives. Of. Billions. Of. People. Start there.

whyever 8y ago
> Millions. Of. People. Write. Python. That. Affects. The. Lives. Of. Billions. Of. People. Start there. I don't think this is how open source development works. Probably most of the core contributors are doing it for pleasure, not for satisfying the needs of the users.
- spenrose 8y ago
  Thanks, that's a much improved way of expressing my point.
- newen 8y ago
  This idea that are large and influential project like Python is just the same as a hobby project I put on github and do in my spare time is ridculous. I am pretty sure most of the core contributors of Python are doing it as part of their 9-5 job. Then there is the implication that because they are doing it for pleasure, they don't owe anything to anyone. It's ridculous. This software affects millions of people and it's not a dumb hobby project.
  - msla 8y ago

syvex 8y ago

Guido's leadership has really been what's kept Python so consistent during its evolution. This is in contrast to languages governed by committee or corporation. Hopefully Python continues to be guided in this manner, and Guido can help rally the Python community around a successor.

richiverse 8y ago

Why not try a president of Python every 4 years with no term limits? Similar to BDFL, except there are chances for change and a consistent voice throughout a term. Voters would consist of core devs and PSF.

toyg 8y ago
Basically the Debian model. It has some drawbacks.

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vectorEQ 8y ago

Dennis: What I object to is you automatically treatin' me like an inferior. Arthur: Well, I am king. Dennis: Oh, king, eh? Very nice. And how'd you get that, then? By exploiting the workers! By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society! If there's ever going to be any progress-- Dennis: We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as sort-of-executive officer for the week-- Arthur: Yes. Dennis: But all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special biweekly meeting-- Arthur: Yes, I see. Dennis: By a simple majority, in the case of purely internal affairs-- Arthur: [getting bored] Be quiet. Dennis: But by a two thirds majority, in the case of more major-- Arthur: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet! Dennis' Mother: Order, eh? Who does he think he is? Arthur: I am your king! Dennis' Mother: Well I didn't vote for you. Arthur: You don't vote for kings! Dennis' Mother: How'd you become king, then? Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, [Angel chorus begins singing in background] her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. [Angel chorus ends] That is why I am your king! Dennis: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. Arthur: Be quiet! Dennis: You can't expect to wield supreme power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you! Arthur: Shut up! Dennis: I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away! Arthur: Shut up! Will you shut up?! [Grabs Dennis and shakes him] Dennis: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system! Arthur: Shut up! Dennis: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!