Production Pyrex Re: [Pyrex] Pyrex at Pycon

[Paul Prescod]

Phillip J. Eby wrote:
> At 06:02 PM 3/30/04 -0800, Paul Prescod wrote:
> 
>....
> I think I'd want to see Greg (or somebody) as a Pyrex BDFL (chief cook?) 
> to decree what the *language* is, so that even if the two 
> implementations take different approaches, they'll still be interoperable.

I would like Greg to be the BDFL for "Pyrex Pro" (for lack of a better 
name) as well as his Pyrex. So I'll formally ask him: Greg, would you do it?

The only caveat is that BDFL is a very different kind of role to what 
he's done in Pyrex. He would have to commit to reviewing other people's 
proposals and implementations in a timely fashion. In the early days of 
Python, Guido did 95% of the implementation. Nowadays his primary role 
is to be constantly available to Pronounce and direct. I don't know 
whether Greg is interested in that sort of role.

The issue would come to a head if someone else designed and implemented 
a major feature (e.g. C++ support). Somebody needs to commit to 
reviewing that design and implementation and providing direction on how 
to make it acceptable for checkin. If Greg is available and interested, 
he should do it. If not, I think that someone else would need to step 
into the breach. It would not be right for us to just ignore the other 
person's work. No particular individual should be the bottleneck. See 
also CatB.

So am I proposing a fork to Pyrex? I think it would become a fork if it 
had to but should not if it is at all avoidable.

As far as the implementations go: if Greg is BDFL for the branch then I 
don't see why it would diverge very far from his implementation. 
Ideally, he would see the public implementation as being "what he would 
have done if he had time to do it all himself." (as the public version 
of Python is for Guido)

On the other hand, Greg is a private individual and has no 
responsibility to us. If he isn't interested, I would hope that a BDFL 
would arise: perhaps some hotshot would migrate over from python-dev. I 
strongly doubt that I would ever be that person...I would have to quit 
my job first.

  Paul Prescod