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.
>
β€œThe 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.” ~  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€œ[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.”
:)

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/>
)
_______________________________________________
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/SGDPAXGBI2627HFBK7NV5GQWDXDSRR4W/
Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/

Reply via email to