Re: Re: Python extension commands in git - request for policy change
- From
Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
- Date
- Nov 25, 2012, 17:21 UTC
- Message-ID
- <alpine.DEB.1.00.1211251806390.7256@s15462909.onlinehome-server.info>
- In-Reply-To
- <20121125051809.GA3670@thyrsus.com>
Hi,
thank you Duy for thinking of Cc:ing the msysGit mailing list. We indeed do not have a working Python in Git for Windows yet (mainly because I did not review kusma's patch yet thanks to a non-fun-at-all side track).
On Sun, 25 Nov 2012, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
Show 5 quoted lines
> Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy <pclouds@gmail.com>: > > 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.
It is one thing to allow users to use the scripting languages of their choice to do their work.
It is a different thing completely to allow the core of an important piece of software like Git to consist of a hodge podge of languages. There are so many problems already, both technical and social ones [*1*], that I would really like to caution against letting even more languages creep into the core. It is bad enough already.
Ciao, Dscho
Footnote [*1*]: Technical problems include serious performance issues on Windows when using shell/Perl scripting (see the many, many complaints about git-svn just as an example), portability problems (I am thankful that Junio seems to insist at least on POSIX compatibility of shell scripts still even if there are very vocal forces trying to get lazy on that front).
And do not underestimate the social problems with *requiring* contributors to know yet another language well just because you let a core part be written in that language. There is even a rule of thumb: increase the number of languages used in your program == halve the number of potential contributors. And if you think that this is theoretical: look at the mails we got about Git GUI being written in Tcl/Tk (hardly a difficult language to learn) and losing contributors over it.
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