Re: [python-committers] A different way to focus discussions

[Carol Willing]

> On May 22, 2018, at 5:21 PM, Guido van Rossum  > wrote:
> 
> On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 2:50 PM, Victor Stinner  > wrote:
> 2018-05-19 0:25 GMT+02:00 Guido van Rossum  >:
> > Discussing PEPs on python-dev and python-ideas is clearly not scalable any
> > more. (Even python-committers probably doesn't scale too well. :-)
> >
> > I wonder if it would make sense to require that for each PEP a new GitHub
> > *repo* be created whose contents would just be a draft PEP and whose issue
> > tracker and PR manager would be used to debate the PEP and propose specific
> > changes.
> 
> Which problem do you want to solve? Reduce the number of emails per
> month on python-ideas and python-dev? Reduce the number of messages
> per PEP?
> 
> Both. The lists have gotten out of hand, and it's clear that many people 
> don't bother to read much of the discussion before posting an outraged 
> response to something they disagree with.
>  
> If the number of messages per PEP is the problem, I don't see how
> replacing emails with GitHub would help. GitHub allows to add comments
> on:
> 
> * commits
> * issues
> * pull requests
> 
> Anyone can open new issues and new pull requests. It might be harder
> to follow discussions if they are occur at different parts of a single
> repository.
> 
> That's why I propose one repo per new PEP (or small cluster of related PEPs). 
> I agree that just having one PR per PEP in the peps repo would not be an 
> improvement.
> 
> The single repo puts all related discussion together (all issues in that repo 
> are about the same topic). This makes it easier for the PEP author to read 
> all traffic related to their PEP without forcing them to read all of 
> python-{ideas,dev}, while making it easier for others to create new threads 
> (no worries that the PEP author won't see your comment). It also lets the PEP 
> author effectively moderate the discussion (they can close issues and even 
> delete off-topic messages). It also makes it possible for interested 3rd 
> parties to read all traffic related to a repo (just subscribe to the repo).
>  
> I guess that your motivation is to prevent another PEP 572 mess.
> 
> IMHO the discussions on the PEP 572 became a mess because nobody
> wanted to moderate the discussion. I asked on python-committers how to
> calm down the discussion, but no action has been taken and the flow of
> emails didn't stop.
> 
> What action *can* you take on mailing lists like python-{ideas,dev}?
>  
> A moderator can try to summarize the discussion or can ask to stop
> discussing the PEP until the PEP is updated. For the PEP 572, it seems
> like a few issues have been spotted in the PEP, but I don't recall an
> email saying "these points must be fixed in the PEP, please wait until
> the PEP is updated".
> 
> Will it be simpler to moderate discussions on GitHub? Or do you expect
> that less people will go to GitHub, than on python-dev/python-ideas,
> to discuss?
> 
> GitHub has superior moderation abilities over our mailing lists, plus the 
> volume per topic (PEP or cluster of PEPs) is lower than the entire volume of 
> python-{ideas,dev}.
> 
> If it discourages drive-by comments by people not really invested in the 
> discussion but eager to show off their opinions, well, that's just an added 
> benefit.
>  
> I like emails because it's plain text, it's easily readable on all
> devices, there are archives (controlled by Python) which are readable
> online, etc. I also like threads in emails. It's easy to see if I
> missed messages. On GitHub, there is no markers of unread messages,
> only notifications (well, there are also notifications with messages
> ;-)).
> 
> Maybe you should learn more about how to use GitHub? I find the experience 
> superior, and I routinely keep up with it on my phone.
>  
> IMHO a PEP should summarize the most important discussed points.
> Otherwise, each time that someone who don't know the PEP will read it,
> the same discussion will restart from scratch. And I don't think that
> PEP 572 made that.
> 
> That's an unreasonable requirement when the discussion gets out of hand like 
> it got in that case. I hope to make it easier for the PEP author(s) to keep 
> up in part so they will have an easier time summarizing (and won't be drawn 
> into fruitless arguments as much by semi-troll comments).
>  
> > Thoughts? (We can dogfood this proposal too, if there's interest. :-)
> 
> Apart the PEP 572, I recalled that I have been annoyed by the fspath
> protocol before a PEP has been written. I also recall that the
> discussions stopped when I asked to wait until Brett (and someone
> else, sorry I forgot) writes a PEP. For other PEPs, I think that the
> volume of emails is acceptable.
> 
> That was a long time ago. Note that the cluster around PEP 550 was #2 on your 
> list, this was also fairly recent. I feel that 

Re: [python-committers] A different way to focus discussions

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 05:58:39PM -0400, Donald Stufft wrote:
> 
> > On May 22, 2018, at 5:50 PM, Victor Stinner  wrote:
> > 
> > IMHO the discussions on the PEP 572 became a mess because nobody
> > wanted to moderate the discussion. I asked on python-committers how to
> > calm down the discussion, but no action has been taken and the flow of
> > emails didn't stop.
> 
> FWIW, I think this is a key thing— Mailing lists are not easily 
> moderatable.

*Unmoderated* mailing lists are not easily moderated.


> There’s no way to pause discussion, redirect, etc 

Does Github allow us to do these things? Not a rhetorical question.


> besides 
> generating *more* email (and the tooling to do it is lackluster, it’s 
> pretty much just asking people to do something, and hope everyone 
> complies). Fracturing the discussion amongst multiple repos is one way 
> of handling that, another option is better tooling for moderation. 

It is one thing to identify a problem, another thing to state that 
something is a solution to that problem, and a completely different 
thing to actually solve the problem. How does fracturing the discussion 
help?

One of the problems with PEP 372 was that the discussion was fractured 
across multiple threads on two mailing lists, leading to the same points 
being raised over and over again. (I think Chris was premature in taking 
it to Python-Dev while it was still be actively argued on Python-Ideas.)

It seems to me that "fracturing the discussion amongst multiple repos" 
will have the same effect: increase the total volume, not decrease it, 
as well as increasing the chances that salient points will be missed. Am 
I wrong?

As for better tooling for moderation, I asked earlier in this thread how 
moving to Github will help. What is this tooling?


I think the problem with PEP 572 was that it was a perfect storm of a 
number of factors:

- it relates to a feature simple enough that everyone has an opinion;

- the statement/expression divide ("assignment is NOT an expression,
  and that's a feature!") has been a point of distinction between
  Python and "the competition" for 20+ years;

- hence some very strong feelings;

- legitimate concerns over complexity and the assign/equals bug;

- bike-shedding and arguments over syntax;

- distraction over unrelated proposal to change the way scoping works
  inside classes;

- lots of newcomers to the community.

I count at least three discussions about this on Reddit:

https://redd.it/8fpv3f
https://redd.it/8fokpw
https://redd.it/8ex72p

Most PEPs don't get even one.

Trialling Github with a simpler, less emotional and bike-sheddy PEP may 
not demonstrate how well the process works when everyone and their pet 
cat has an opinion.



-- 
Steve
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Re: [python-committers] A different way to focus discussions

[Guido van Rossum]

On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 2:50 PM, Victor Stinner  wrote:

> 2018-05-19 0:25 GMT+02:00 Guido van Rossum :
> > Discussing PEPs on python-dev and python-ideas is clearly not scalable
> any
> > more. (Even python-committers probably doesn't scale too well. :-)
> >
> > I wonder if it would make sense to require that for each PEP a new GitHub
> > *repo* be created whose contents would just be a draft PEP and whose
> issue
> > tracker and PR manager would be used to debate the PEP and propose
> specific
> > changes.
>
> Which problem do you want to solve? Reduce the number of emails per
> month on python-ideas and python-dev? Reduce the number of messages
> per PEP?
>

Both. The lists have gotten out of hand, and it's clear that many people
don't bother to read much of the discussion before posting an outraged
response to something they disagree with.


> If the number of messages per PEP is the problem, I don't see how
> replacing emails with GitHub would help. GitHub allows to add comments
> on:
>
> * commits
> * issues
> * pull requests
>
> Anyone can open new issues and new pull requests. It might be harder
> to follow discussions if they are occur at different parts of a single
> repository.
>

That's why I propose one repo per new PEP (or small cluster of related
PEPs). I agree that just having one PR per PEP in the peps repo would not
be an improvement.

The single repo puts all related discussion together (all issues in that
repo are about the same topic). This makes it easier for the PEP author to
read all traffic related to their PEP without forcing them to read all of
python-{ideas,dev}, while making it easier for others to create new threads
(no worries that the PEP author won't see your comment). It also lets the
PEP author effectively moderate the discussion (they can close issues and
even delete off-topic messages). It also makes it possible for interested
3rd parties to read all traffic related to a repo (just subscribe to the
repo).


> I guess that your motivation is to prevent another PEP 572 mess.
>
> IMHO the discussions on the PEP 572 became a mess because nobody
> wanted to moderate the discussion. I asked on python-committers how to
> calm down the discussion, but no action has been taken and the flow of
> emails didn't stop.
>

What action *can* you take on mailing lists like python-{ideas,dev}?


> A moderator can try to summarize the discussion or can ask to stop
> discussing the PEP until the PEP is updated. For the PEP 572, it seems
> like a few issues have been spotted in the PEP, but I don't recall an
> email saying "these points must be fixed in the PEP, please wait until
> the PEP is updated".
>
> Will it be simpler to moderate discussions on GitHub? Or do you expect
> that less people will go to GitHub, than on python-dev/python-ideas,
> to discuss?
>

GitHub has superior moderation abilities over our mailing lists, plus the
volume per topic (PEP or cluster of PEPs) is lower than the entire volume
of python-{ideas,dev}.

If it discourages drive-by comments by people not really invested in the
discussion but eager to show off their opinions, well, that's just an added
benefit.


> I like emails because it's plain text, it's easily readable on all
> devices, there are archives (controlled by Python) which are readable
> online, etc. I also like threads in emails. It's easy to see if I
> missed messages. On GitHub, there is no markers of unread messages,
> only notifications (well, there are also notifications with messages
> ;-)).
>

Maybe you should learn more about how to use GitHub? I find the experience
superior, and I routinely keep up with it on my phone.


> IMHO a PEP should summarize the most important discussed points.
> Otherwise, each time that someone who don't know the PEP will read it,
> the same discussion will restart from scratch. And I don't think that
> PEP 572 made that.
>

That's an unreasonable requirement when the discussion gets out of hand
like it got in that case. I hope to make it easier for the PEP author(s) to
keep up in part so they will have an easier time summarizing (and won't be
drawn into fruitless arguments as much by semi-troll comments).


> > Thoughts? (We can dogfood this proposal too, if there's interest. :-)
>
> Apart the PEP 572, I recalled that I have been annoyed by the fspath
> protocol before a PEP has been written. I also recall that the
> discussions stopped when I asked to wait until Brett (and someone
> else, sorry I forgot) writes a PEP. For other PEPs, I think that the
> volume of emails is acceptable.
>

That was a long time ago. Note that the cluster around PEP 550 was #2 on
your list, this was also fairly recent. I feel that traffic *in general*
has been up (I routinely see threads on python-ideas now where I think
"dumb idea" and mute the conversation).


> I also like the idea of getting all PEPs in python-dev because it's
> easier for me to be aware of currently discussed PEPs, even 

Re: [python-committers] A different way to focus discussions

[Victor Stinner]

2018-05-22 23:58 GMT+02:00 Donald Stufft :
> FWIW, I think this is a key thing— Mailing lists are not easily moderatable.
> There’s no way to pause discussion, redirect, etc besides generating *more*
> email (and the tooling to do it is lackluster, it’s pretty much just asking
> people to do something, and hope everyone complies). Fracturing the
> discussion amongst multiple repos is one way of handling that, another
> option is better tooling for moderation.

Another solution is to use Special Interest Group (SIG) mailing lists
to discuss PEPs.

distutils-sig accepted many PEPs which were never posted to
python-dev. Someone told me that PEPs are not posted to python-dev to
avoid restarting discussions from scratch ;-) I have been told when I
asked why TOML has been chosen instead of YAML for a PEP ;-) It was
maybe the PEP 518, I don't recall.

Do we need a new more specific mailing lists to discuss PEPs changing
the Python language?

Or a generic noisy-pep mailing lists for PEPs with high traffic? :-)

Victor
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Re: [python-committers] A different way to focus discussions

[Donald Stufft]

> On May 22, 2018, at 5:50 PM, Victor Stinner  wrote:
> 
> IMHO the discussions on the PEP 572 became a mess because nobody
> wanted to moderate the discussion. I asked on python-committers how to
> calm down the discussion, but no action has been taken and the flow of
> emails didn't stop.

FWIW, I think this is a key thing— Mailing lists are not easily moderatable. 
There’s no way to pause discussion, redirect, etc besides generating *more* 
email (and the tooling to do it is lackluster, it’s pretty much just asking 
people to do something, and hope everyone complies). Fracturing the discussion 
amongst multiple repos is one way of handling that, another option is better 
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Re: [python-committers] A different way to focus discussions

[Victor Stinner]

Hi,

2018-05-19 0:25 GMT+02:00 Guido van Rossum :
> Discussing PEPs on python-dev and python-ideas is clearly not scalable any
> more. (Even python-committers probably doesn't scale too well. :-)
>
> I wonder if it would make sense to require that for each PEP a new GitHub
> *repo* be created whose contents would just be a draft PEP and whose issue
> tracker and PR manager would be used to debate the PEP and propose specific
> changes.

Which problem do you want to solve? Reduce the number of emails per
month on python-ideas and python-dev? Reduce the number of messages
per PEP?

If the number of messages per PEP is the problem, I don't see how
replacing emails with GitHub would help. GitHub allows to add comments
on:

* commits
* issues
* pull requests

Anyone can open new issues and new pull requests. It might be harder
to follow discussions if they are occur at different parts of a single
repository.

I guess that your motivation is to prevent another PEP 572 mess.

IMHO the discussions on the PEP 572 became a mess because nobody
wanted to moderate the discussion. I asked on python-committers how to
calm down the discussion, but no action has been taken and the flow of
emails didn't stop.

A moderator can try to summarize the discussion or can ask to stop
discussing the PEP until the PEP is updated. For the PEP 572, it seems
like a few issues have been spotted in the PEP, but I don't recall an
email saying "these points must be fixed in the PEP, please wait until
the PEP is updated".

Will it be simpler to moderate discussions on GitHub? Or do you expect
that less people will go to GitHub, than on python-dev/python-ideas,
to discuss?

I like emails because it's plain text, it's easily readable on all
devices, there are archives (controlled by Python) which are readable
online, etc. I also like threads in emails. It's easy to see if I
missed messages. On GitHub, there is no markers of unread messages,
only notifications (well, there are also notifications with messages
;-)).

IMHO a PEP should summarize the most important discussed points.
Otherwise, each time that someone who don't know the PEP will read it,
the same discussion will restart from scratch. And I don't think that
PEP 572 made that.

> Thoughts? (We can dogfood this proposal too, if there's interest. :-)

Apart the PEP 572, I recalled that I have been annoyed by the fspath
protocol before a PEP has been written. I also recall that the
discussions stopped when I asked to wait until Brett (and someone
else, sorry I forgot) writes a PEP. For other PEPs, I think that the
volume of emails is acceptable.

I also like the idea of getting all PEPs in python-dev because it's
easier for me to be aware of currently discussed PEPs, even if I don't
read the discussions.

But it seems like I'm getting old and resist to the shiny new GitHub
which will solve all our issues ;-)

Victor
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Re: [python-committers] A different way to focus discussions

[Barry Warsaw]

On May 22, 2018, at 12:44, Guido van Rossum  wrote:
> 
> Hm, what's the cost of those extra repos? As long as they have consistent 
> names (e.g. pep-1234) they're easy to ignore right? Or does GitHub have a 
> quota of repos per org?

I think there is a quota for non-paying organizations, but I’m not sure.  I was 
just thinking about clutter on https://github.com/python but maybe it won’t be 
so bad with…

> I was thinking of a workflow where the pep author initially creates the repo 
> under their own username and directs discussion there. Then when their PEP is 
> accepted (or rejected!) they can donate their repo to the python org. I know 
> such a thing is possible (we did it for the mypy and typeshed repos).

… +1!

> Ironically for me GitHub is less linear than email. It's easier to ask people 
> to open a new issue than it is to ask them to start a new thread. So e.g. if 
> a discussion starts about a survey of feature X in various languages, when it 
> veers off into a tutorial for a specific language that could be a separate 
> issue, and the meta-discussion on how the list of languages should be 
> selected could be made another issue.

I see what you’re saying.  Yes, that could work if the PEP author is really 
diligent about shunting detours into new issues.  I’ve just found that within 
PRs or issues, the linearity can be quite difficult to follow.  (FWIW, IMHO, 
GitLab does better here, but that’s besides the point.)

> I think Mark Shannon volunteered PEP 576 (though so far he hasn't created a 
> separate repo, he's just created a PR for the peps repo IIUC). I hope Nick 
> will also volunteer PEP 577 for this.

+1

-Barry


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Re: [python-committers] A different way to focus discussions

[Brett Cannon]

On Tue, 22 May 2018 at 12:07 Antoine Pitrou  wrote:

>
> Le 22/05/2018 à 20:58, Barry Warsaw a écrit :
> >
> >> Thoughts? (We can dogfood this proposal too, if there's interest. :-)
> >
> > I don't know whether this will help focus rambling PEP discussions.  I
> personally don't love the linearity of GH comments.  Threading is useful!
>
> What has become of the Discourse experiment?
>

A Discourse experiment was never started. If you mean Zulip it's still
going at python.zulipchat.com.


>
> Regards
>
> Antoine.
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Re: [python-committers] A different way to focus discussions

[Victor Stinner]

Hi,

2018-05-19 7:45 GMT+02:00 Antoine Pitrou :
> It would be *very* interesting if someone was willing to do some stats
> on PEPs over time: e.g. number of PEPs discussed every year, discussion
> length, number of discusssion participants.  I actually expect overall
> PEP activity to have gone down since the 2000s.

I counted the number of emails per PEP (sent to python-dev or
python-ideas) on the period Jan 2017 - April 2018:
https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-committers/2018-April/005310.html

My script:
https://github.com/vstinner/misc/blob/master/python/parse_mailman_mbox_peps.py

I downloaded "[ Gzip'd Text 227 KB ]" links from
https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/ and
https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/ and then uncompressed
them.

Victor
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Re: [python-committers] A different way to focus discussions

[Guido van Rossum]

On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 11:58 AM, Barry Warsaw  wrote:

> [I think my other response got dropped, so apologies for any duplicates]
>
> Guido van Rossum wrote:
> > I wonder if it would make sense to require that for each PEP a new GitHub
> > *repo* be created whose contents would just be a draft PEP and whose
> issue
> > tracker and PR manager would be used to debate the PEP and propose
> specific
> > changes.
>
> I don't think I'd want to see tons of new PEP repos under the current
> `python` organization.  Maybe we should create a new organization for this
> experiment?
>

Hm, what's the cost of those extra repos? As long as they have consistent
names (e.g. pep-1234) they're easy to ignore right? Or does GitHub have a
quota of repos per org?


> Also, since non-core devs can and do create PEPs, the permission
> management will be different than the normal repos.  Clearly the PEP
> authors should be owners of the individual repos, but they should probably
> also decide how merges happen, and who else can contribute to their repo.
>
> It also means that PEP editors probably have an additional responsibility
> to create the PEP repo.
>

I was thinking of a workflow where the pep author initially creates the
repo under their own username and directs discussion there. Then when their
PEP is accepted (or rejected!) they can donate their repo to the python
org. I know such a thing is possible (we did it for the mypy and typeshed
repos).


> PEP 1's Discussions-To header can probably be co-opted for the URL to the
> GH repo.  Right now, that field is described as an email address, but it
> would be appropriate IMHO to also allow a URL for discussions.
>

Sure.

> Thoughts? (We can dogfood this proposal too, if there's interest. :-)
>
> I don't know whether this will help focus rambling PEP discussions.  I
> personally don't love the linearity of GH comments.  Threading is useful!
>

Ironically for me GitHub is less linear than email. It's easier to ask
people to open a new issue than it is to ask them to start a new thread. So
e.g. if a discussion starts about a survey of feature X in various
languages, when it veers off into a tutorial for a specific language that
could be a separate issue, and the meta-discussion on how the list of
languages should be selected could be made another issue.


> OTOH, it seems like a low-cost experiment to try so if there's a volunteer
> who wants to be the guinea pig, I'm fine with it.
>

I think Mark Shannon volunteered PEP 576 (though so far he hasn't created a
separate repo, he's just created a PR for the peps repo IIUC). I hope Nick
will also volunteer PEP 577 for this.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
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Re: [python-committers] A different way to focus discussions

[Antoine Pitrou]

Le 22/05/2018 à 20:58, Barry Warsaw a écrit :
> 
>> Thoughts? (We can dogfood this proposal too, if there's interest. :-)
> 
> I don't know whether this will help focus rambling PEP discussions.  I 
> personally don't love the linearity of GH comments.  Threading is useful!

What has become of the Discourse experiment?

Regards

Antoine.
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Re: [python-committers] A different way to focus discussions

[Barry Warsaw]

[I think my other response got dropped, so apologies for any duplicates]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
> I wonder if it would make sense to require that for each PEP a new GitHub
> *repo* be created whose contents would just be a draft PEP and whose issue
> tracker and PR manager would be used to debate the PEP and propose specific
> changes.

I don't think I'd want to see tons of new PEP repos under the current `python` 
organization.  Maybe we should create a new organization for this experiment?

Also, since non-core devs can and do create PEPs, the permission management 
will be different than the normal repos.  Clearly the PEP authors should be 
owners of the individual repos, but they should probably also decide how merges 
happen, and who else can contribute to their repo.

It also means that PEP editors probably have an additional responsibility to 
create the PEP repo.

PEP 1's Discussions-To header can probably be co-opted for the URL to the GH 
repo.  Right now, that field is described as an email address, but it would be 
appropriate IMHO to also allow a URL for discussions.

> Thoughts? (We can dogfood this proposal too, if there's interest. :-)

I don't know whether this will help focus rambling PEP discussions.  I 
personally don't love the linearity of GH comments.  Threading is useful!

OTOH, it seems like a low-cost experiment to try so if there's a volunteer who 
wants to be the guinea pig, I'm fine with it.

-Barry


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