Daily Life in an Ivory Basement

This TDD anti-pattern catalogue is truly excellent!

--titus

I'd like to find an MSU student to report semi-monthly on python-dev. The student would be responsible for monitoring the python-dev mailing list and active PEPs, summarizing substantive discussions in a public forum, and integrating feedback from the community. This would be a 1 credit CSE independent study course (CSE 490). Additional effort (for more credits) could be applied towards building and maintaining a CMS site to store and reference past and present summaries, or integrating reviews of new modules.

The ideal student would be someone who communicates well in writing, is interested in technical reporting, and has some basic experience with programming. Python experience (CSE 231) is a plus.

Please send a brief summary of interests together with a sample of writing to ctb@msu.edu.

--titus

Apparently the ipaddr module in Python 3.1 is disliked by some, and there was a reasonably robust discussion on python-dev about how it's wrong, wrong, wrong. Guido finally ruled: ixnay on the addr-pay.

This is pretty relevant given the twitstorm caused by Zed Shaw's ludicrously self-confident rants about how he always knows best and is a kickass programmer and oh, by the way, the Python stdlib is kinda lousy in places. I think the thing to take away from Zed's rant is that the Python module addition process is, in fact, moderately FUBARed, with some people able to add perhaps ill-considered modules while others have to struggle to get the time of day. (Aahz's solution is good -- require a PEP.)

It's relevant personally, too, as I dig my way through some of pygr's modules. It's way easier to add code than it is to refactor it, especially if you don't have a lot of unit tests; if you want to retain backwards compatibility, you're basically doomed. DOOOMED, I say! And that's why the Python stdlib has so many issues.

(Incidentally, nothing against Zed Shaw -- obnoxiousness is his public persona, and he's definitely worth listening too -- but it is funny to realize that all his articles contain arguments that boil down to "he always knows best and is a kickass programmer." I especially liked his statistics rant.)

--titus