On 8/03/2007, at 2:42 AM, Paul Moore wrote: > On 06/03/07, Scott Dial <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Sadly the sf tracker doesn't let you search for "With comments >> by". The >> patch I was making reference to was 1410680. Someone else actually >> had >> wrote a patch that contained bugs and I corrected them. And with >> that, I >> was the last person to comment or review the patch in question. [...] > On the other hand, what I've done is similar to what you did - comment > on someone else's patch. It seems relevant to me that the original > poster (Tony Meyer) hasn't felt strongly enough to respond on his own > behalf to comments on his patch. No disrespect to Tony, but I'd argue > that the implication is that the patch should be rejected because even > the submitter doesn't care enough to respond to comments!
There is a considerable difference between "doesn't care enough", and "has not had time to be able to" (although in this specific case "doesn't care enough" is correct). I have submitted a very small (3?) number of patches, however, I suspect that my position is similar to others, so I offer an explanation in the hope that it adds value to this thread. I don't submit patches because I need the problem fixed in the Python distribution. I make the change locally, and either I am distributing a frozen application (almost always the case), which includes my local fix, or a workaround is made in the application source which means that the main Python distribution fix is unneeded (e.g. this is what I did with SpamBayes). The particular patch mentioned is one that uses code (more-or-less) from SpamBayes. SpamBayes has the code - it doesn't matter whether it's in the Python distribution or not. At the time I wrote the patch, there were (again) discussions on python-dev about what should be done to ConfigParser. I had some time free in those days, and, since I had some code that did more-or-less what Guido indicated was the best option, I contributed it (writing unittests, documentation, and commenting in the related tickets). To a certain extent, I considered that my work done. This was something I contributed because many people continually requested it, not something I felt a personal need to be added to the distribution (as above, that's not a need that I generally feel). I (much) later got email with patches, and then later email from Mark Hammond about the patch (IIRC Mark was looking at it and was thinking of fixing it up; I think I forwarded the email I got to him. OTOH, maybe he also sent me fixes - I'm too busy to trawl through email archives to figure it out). At the time, I hoped to fix up the errors and submit a revised patch, but my son was born a few weeks later and I never found the time. If the patch had been reviewed more quickly, then I probably would have found time to correct it - however, everyone else is busy to (if I felt strongly about it, then I would have reviewed 5 other patches, as I have in the past, and 'forced' more quick review, but I did not). For me, submitting a patch is mostly altruistic - if I do that then other people don't also have do the work I did, and hopefully other people do that as well, saving me work. It's not something I require, at all. This isn't something that is easy to make time for. ISTM that there is value in submitting a patch (including tests and documentation, and making appropriate comment in related patches), even if that is all that is done (i.e. no follow-up). If the value isn't there without that follow-up 'caring', then that is something that should be addressed to 'encourage developers'. Contributions don't only come from people hoping to be 'core' developers some day. Uncaringly-(with-apologies-to-uncle-timmy), Tony _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com