On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 10:49 AM Victor Stinner <vstin...@python.org> wrote:
> What happens usually is that some modules have no maintainer. Once you > merge a single change in a module, boom! You are now the new > maintainer for your entire life time! More and more people will ask > you to look at their "very important" bug blocking their production > and their very specific use case. You will get more and more reviews > request: "since you merged a single change 12 months ago, I'm sure > that you will love to review my precioooous bugfix! Come on, it's > trivial!". Now you realize that you don't know the design of the > module. You don't know its history. You know nothing, and the entire > world now have very high expectation, since you merged an obvious and > trivial change. > βThe ancient Oracle said that I was the wisest of all the Greeks. It is because I alone, of all the Greeks, know that I know nothing.β ~ Socrates The same could largely be applied to maintaining open source (especially a codebase as large as CPython). The truth is that at a fundamental level, we're all (any software developer) just making educated guesses as to whether or not patches are suitable for merging, or whether or not a bug fix will actually work. Tests make us a little more certain, but it is still a guess. So the problem is really just the unrealistic expectation that there exists people who are able to make a decision with absolute 100% certainty that no regressions or future unexpected issues will occur as a result of the change. Also, for fun, here's a pythonized version of the quote: β[Guido] said that I was the wisest of all the [pythonistas]. It is because I alone, of all the [pythonistas], know that I know nothing.β :) With loving-kindness, -- --Kyle R. Stanley, Python Core Developer (what is a core dev? <https://devguide.python.org/coredev/>) *Pronouns: they/them **(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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