Mailing Lists

Python's development is coordinated through a variety of mailing lists and online forums, differing in focus and in the number of participants.

python-list

The most general and most high-traffic list is python-list, which is also gatewayed to the Usenet newsgroup comp.lang.python. Pretty much anything Python-related is fair game for discussion, and the group is even fairly tolerant of off-topic digressions. In the past there have been lengthy and informative threads about floating point, good software design, and even other programming languages such as Lisp and Forth.

python-list mostly has discussion of development in Python, and not too much development of the Python interpreter itself. Some of the core developers still read the list, but most don't. Suggestions made on python-list often turn out to be frequently-made ones that are always rejected, but there have been other times when suggestions turned into a PEP, and then into a new feature. If you find a bug, don't just post it here; file a bug report in the bug tracker.

Rudeness and personal attacks, even in reaction to blatant flamebait, are strongly frowned upon. People may strongly disagree on an issue, but usually discussion remains civil. In case of an actual flamebait posting, you can ignore it, quietly plonk the offending poster in your killfile or mail filters, or write a sharp but still-polite response, but at all costs resist the urge to flame back. Generally python-list is a high-signal, low-noise group. The traffic is also quite high, currently running at around 150 posts per day.

python-announce

Special Interest Groups

Special Interest Groups, or SIGs, are working groups focused on a single topic, such as database programming or text processing. See the SIG page for a list of all the existing SIGs. SIGs are created by proposing a new SIG on the Meta-SIG mailing list, and require writing a mission statement and coming up with a list of deliverables.

Some SIGs have been quite successful:

• The XML SIG has produced a distribution of Python XML software and is where almost all discussion of Python and XML takes place.
• The Database SIG produced a standard Python API for accessing SQL databases, described as PEPs 248 and 249.
• The Distutils SIG produced the Distutils package included with Python 1.6.

Other SIGs haven't been as productive, though. For example, the Catalog SIG and its predecessor the Locator SIG sputtered along for years without ever finalizing an implementation of a Python software catalog. Therefore, the maintainers of python.org will want some fairly clear evidence that the new SIG will attract enough developer interest to achieve its goal. You might be happiest just creating a mailing list to discuss your topic, whether on a server you own or on a free list service such as Yahoo Groups, rather than bother with the formalities of creating a SIG.

python-dev

python-dev is the heart of Python's development. Practically everyone with CVS write privileges is on python-dev, and first drafts of PEPs are often posted here for initial review and rewriting before their more public appearance on python-announce.

Anyone can subscribe to python-dev, though your subscription will have to been approved, resulting in a delay of a day or two before you start receiving e-mail. The list address does accepts e-mail from non-members, and the archives are public.

Bi-weekly summaries of Python-dev traffic are posted to python-announce-list (comp.lang.python); back issues are available from the official archive site on python.org.

python-checkins

python-checkins is a mailing list primarily intended for developers with commit access to Python's CVS repository. This list receives auto-generated messages for changes committed to CVS. It makes it easy for developers to know what is happening in the CVS repository in an easy way. The volume of traffic on this list varies widely based on developer activity.