From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Eric S. Raymond" Subject: Re: Python extension commands in git - request for policy change Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2012 00:18:09 -0500 Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs Message-ID: <20121125051809.GA3670@thyrsus.com> References: <20121125024451.1ADD14065F@snark.thyrsus.com> Reply-To: esr@thyrsus.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: git@vger.kernel.org, msysGit To: Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Sun Nov 25 06:26:53 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.180.67]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1TcUk0-0001Kg-BS for gcvg-git-2@plane.gmane.org; Sun, 25 Nov 2012 06:26:52 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1750782Ab2KYFTD (ORCPT ); Sun, 25 Nov 2012 00:19:03 -0500 Received: from static-71-162-243-5.phlapa.fios.verizon.net ([71.162.243.5]:40233 "EHLO snark.thyrsus.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750747Ab2KYFTB (ORCPT ); Sun, 25 Nov 2012 00:19:01 -0500 Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 93AA74065F; Sun, 25 Nov 2012 00:18:09 -0500 (EST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy : > These may apply to other languages as well. Where do we draw a line? I'm in favor of the general policy of avoiding scripting languages other than the top three most widely deployed. At the moment that means shell, Python, Perl; on present trends, in a few years Perl (dropping in popularity) might be passed by Ruby on the way up. Or, to put it another way, I'm *not* actually arguing that we ought to encourage extension commands in Guile or Haskell or whatever else the in-language-of-the-week is. It would be bad for maintainability to fragment git's codebase that way. What I'm arguing is that the tradeoffs within the group {C, shell, Perl, Python} have changed in ways that favor Python as it has become more stable and widely deployed. So instead of grudgingly allowing a few Python extensions in through a back door we ought to be encouraging more use of it. -- Eric S. Raymond