Hm, I searched Google's comp.lang.python archives for mentions of python-dev before 1999, and found this:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.lang.python/-HjN6YjOZJg/wJGxiOlpt1MJ (posted 6/22/98 by Marc-André Lemburg): "What would you think of a python-dev list that takes at least some of burdens of intergrating patches, testing, etc. off of your back ? Then you'd have more time for design, etc." (There's also a reply from me where I question whether it will save me any time.) From this I understand that at that point, python-dev wasn't formed yet. Sadly it does appear as if the archives of Python lists before February have mostly disappeared -- e.g. Activestate has the same first messages as you quoted. On Mon, Jan 6, 2020 at 6:56 AM Skip Montanaro <skip.montan...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Jan 1, 2020 at 7:25 PM Mark Sapiro <m...@msapiro.net> wrote: > >> On 1/1/20 11:22 AM, Barry Warsaw wrote: >> > I am looking at the MM2 mailing list creation confirmation messages in >> my personal archives. Both d...@python.org (at 09:49 server local time?) >> and python-dev@python.org (at 14:17) were created on April 19, 1999. I >> don’t remember what happened to dev@ but based on the timeline, I’m >> retroguessing that we created dev@ first, then quickly rethought the >> name, created python-dev@ and retired dev@. >> >> Just to provide some closure here, the pipermail archive for python-dev >> goes back to April 21, 1999. There is one, possibly spurious message >> from some other list dated March 16, 1995 from Linus Torvalds. >> >> Aside from this one message and as far as I can tell, all the other >> messages from April 21 forward are in the current Hyperkitty archive. > > > (Apologies for letting this drop for a couple days.) > > I'm still befuddled. When I look at the MM2 archive for python-list, it > also only goes back to Feb 1999. Surely I'm missing something. Maybe GNU > Mailman itself isn't much older than 1999 > <https://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman-announce/1999-July/000004.html>. > Perhaps python-dev content was embedded in python-list/comp.lang.python > before Apr 1999, but we were certainly discussing development of and in > Python well before 1999. Where did all the archives go? Maybe it's just my > failing memory. I can accept that. If you look at the filenames of the > earliest python-list and python-dev messages in the archives: > > > - New (?) suggestion to solve "assignment-in-while" desire > <https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/1999-February/005101.html> > (python-list > - Feb 1999 - 005101.html) > - ZServer 1.0b1: spurious colon in HTTP response line > <https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/1999-April/095103.html> > (python-dev > - Apr 1999 - 095103.html) > > you get the impression that there must have been earlier messages. > Wouldn't new lists simply start with message 000000.html by default? The > first message in the csv mailing list is > https://mail.python.org/pipermail/csv/2003-January/000000.html. > > Perhaps what I really pine for are comp.lang.python archives? GMane is > gone. Google Groups seems to have nothing. They must be someplace. I've > heard the Internet never forgets. Even if my personal quest (old messages > about Rattlesnake and other alternative virtual machine projects) fails to > bear fruit, I suspect there is value in maintaining the history of the > Python language. > > Thx again... > > Skip > > _______________________________________________ > Python-Dev mailing list -- python-dev@python.org > To unsubscribe send an email to python-dev-le...@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman3/lists/python-dev.python.org/ > Message archived at > https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-dev@python.org/message/W7UHTMO5ZCZGITDME74RS3JFGNIE3W3Y/ > Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/ > -- --Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido) *Pronouns: he/him **(why is my pronoun here?)* <http://feministing.com/2015/02/03/how-using-they-as-a-singular-pronoun-can-change-the-world/>
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