[kibwen]

> unfortunately

I think it's curious that commenters (this is not aimed at you specifically) don't dare to even indirectly praise bureaucracy without couching it with words like "unfortunately", because there's nothing unfortunate about having a well-described and transparent decision-making process. Python has had bureaucracy for decades, e.g. the entire PEP process, so it's too late for us to be wringing our hands about tainting the Python project with the bogeyman of government.

[SolaceQuantum]

I'm under the impression that well-described, transparent decision making process has the consequence of increasing cognitive load when it comes to participating in decision making. Given that decision-making in large projects like this is already a significant cognitive load, adding on "did I make the decision following pre-defined process goals" does increase difficulty. Whether or not the tradeoffs are worth it is another decision.

[kibwen]

Correct that it involves tradeoffs, though having no process at all for making decisions leads to at worst a free-for-all (which can work for small or non-critical projects, but even so be prepared for inevitable drama), or at best an opaque and implicit process as others here have warned about. To use a HN-friendly analogy, it's like static typing vs dynamic typing: you can either accept pain up-front to avoid pain down the road, or vice-versa. The latter is better for massive, established projects and the former is better for young, rapidly-changing projects, so we must consider which of these two better resembles the Python project.

[SolaceQuantum]

I agree with this, and I'm mostly under the impression that in the case of a benevolent dictator, the benevolent dictator already has a set of processes that are just opaque/implicit. However it is true that in the case of multiple minds (a council) there is latency cost (bureaucracy).

[mixmastamyk]

Are your former/latter backwards?

[simias]

I consider it unfortunate because I think we've all been frustrated by "due process" and having to wait or do seemingly useless tasks when the way to go appears obvious. Being able to say "let's do this" and start hacking right away sounds a lot more fun than "let's submit an RFC and wait for one month for people to comment, then we'll vote and if people accept the proposal we'll implement the unit tests, do the code review, validate the tests, put it on the unstable branch for at least six months and if everything goes right we'll have the change released next year".

I'm far from a libertarian so I completely understand and accept why these rules and regulations are necessary but it's still annoying and somewhat inefficient from time to time. For the same reason I consider it unfortunate and annoying when I get a speeding ticket even though I understand why such things exist.

Rules are good when they apply to other people but they tend to suck when they apply to me, mainly because obviously I'm much more clever than my peers and specs and code reviews are for losers.

[mixmastamyk]

Would be interesting if there could be a bureaucratic process for controversial issues, but also a "fast track" for easy wins.