python-peps/pep-0001.txt

PEP: 1
Title: PEP Purpose and Guidelines
Version: $Revision$
Last-Modified: $Date$
Author: Barry A. Warsaw, Jeremy Hylton, David Goodger
Status: Active
Type: Process
Content-Type: text/x-rst
Created: 13-Jun-2000
Post-History: 21-Mar-2001, 29-Jul-2002, 03-May-2003


What is a PEP?
==============

PEP stands for Python Enhancement Proposal.  A PEP is a design
document providing information to the Python community, or describing
a new feature for Python or its processes or environment.  The PEP
should provide a concise technical specification of the feature and a
rationale for the feature.

We intend PEPs to be the primary mechanisms for proposing new
features, for collecting community input on an issue, and for
documenting the design decisions that have gone into Python.  The PEP
author is responsible for building consensus within the community and
documenting dissenting opinions.

Because the PEPs are maintained as text files under CVS control, their
revision history is the historical record of the feature proposal
[1]_.


PEP Types
=========

There are three kinds of PEP:

1. A **Standards Track** PEP describes a new feature or implementation
   for Python.

2. An **Informational** PEP describes a Python design issue, or
   provides general guidelines or information to the Python community,
   but does not propose a new feature.  Informational PEPs do not
   necessarily represent a Python community consensus or
   recommendation, so users and implementors are free to ignore
   Informational PEPs or follow their advice.

3. A **Process** PEP describes a process surrounding Python, or
   proposes a change to (or an event in) a process.  Process PEPs are
   like Standards Track PEPs but apply to areas other than the Python
   language itself.  They may propose an implementation, but not to
   Python's codebase; they often require community consensus; unlike
   Informational PEPs, they are more than recommendations, and users
   are typically not free to ignore them.  Examples include release
   schedules, procedures, guidelines, changes to the decision-making
   process, and changes to the tools or environment used in Python
   development.


PEP Work Flow
=============

The PEP editors assign PEP numbers and change their status.  The
current PEP editors are David Goodger and Barry Warsaw.  Please send
all PEP-related email to <peps@python.org>.

The PEP process begins with a new idea for Python.  It is highly
recommended that a single PEP contain a single key proposal or new
idea.  The more focussed the PEP, the more successful it tends to
be.  The PEP editor reserves the right to reject PEP proposals if they
appear too unfocussed or too broad.  If in doubt, split your PEP into
several well-focussed ones.

Each PEP must have a champion -- someone who writes the PEP using the
style and format described below, shepherds the discussions in the
appropriate forums, and attempts to build community consensus around
the idea.  The PEP champion (a.k.a. Author) should first attempt to
ascertain whether the idea is PEP-able.  Posting to the
comp.lang.python newsgroup (a.k.a. python-list@python.org mailing
list) is recommended.  Small enhancements or patches often don't need
a PEP and can be injected into the Python development work flow with a
patch submission to the SourceForge `patch manager`_ or `feature
request tracker`_.

The PEP champion then emails the PEP editor <peps@python.org> with a
proposed title and a rough, but fleshed out, draft of the PEP.  This
draft must be written in PEP style as described below.

If the PEP editor approves, he will assign the PEP a number, label it
as Standards Track, Informational, or Process, give it status "Draft",
and create and check-in the initial draft of the PEP.  The PEP editor
will not unreasonably deny a PEP.  Reasons for denying PEP status
include duplication of effort, being technically unsound, not
providing proper motivation or addressing backwards compatibility, or
not in keeping with the Python philosophy.  The BDFL (Benevolent
Dictator for Life, Guido van Rossum) can be consulted during the
approval phase, and is the final arbiter of the draft's PEP-ability.

If a pre-PEP is rejected, the author may elect to take the pre-PEP to
the comp.lang.python newsgroup (a.k.a. python-list@python.org mailing
list) to help flesh it out, gain feedback and consensus from the
community at large, and improve the PEP for re-submission.

The author of the PEP is then responsible for posting the PEP to the
community forums, and marshaling community support for it.  As updates
are necessary, the PEP author can check in new versions if they have
CVS commit permissions, or can email new PEP versions to the PEP
editor for committing.

Standards Track PEPs consist of two parts, a design document and a
reference implementation.  The PEP should be reviewed and accepted
before a reference implementation is begun, unless a reference
implementation will aid people in studying the PEP.  Standards Track
PEPs must include an implementation -- in the form of code, a patch,
or a URL to same -- before it can be considered Final.

PEP authors are responsible for collecting community feedback on a PEP
before submitting it for review.  A PEP that has not been discussed on
python-list@python.org and/or python-dev@python.org will not be
accepted.  However, wherever possible, long open-ended discussions on
public mailing lists should be avoided.  Strategies to keep the
discussions efficient include: setting up a separate SIG mailing list
for the topic, having the PEP author accept private comments in the
early design phases, setting up a wiki page, etc.  PEP authors should
use their discretion here.

Once the authors have completed a PEP, they must inform the PEP editor
that it is ready for review.  PEPs are reviewed by the BDFL and his
chosen consultants, who may accept or reject a PEP or send it back to
the author(s) for revision.  For a PEP that is pre-determined to be
acceptable (e.g., it is an obvious win as-is and/or its implementation
has already been checked in) the BDFL may also initiate a PEP review,
first notifying the PEP author(s) and giving them a chance to make
revisions.

For a PEP to be accepted it must meet certain minimum criteria.  It
must be a clear and complete description of the proposed enhancement.
The enhancement must represent a net improvement.  The proposed
implementation, if applicable, must be solid and must not complicate
the interpreter unduly.  Finally, a proposed enhancement must be
"pythonic" in order to be accepted by the BDFL.  (However, "pythonic"
is an imprecise term; it may be defined as whatever is acceptable to
the BDFL.  This logic is intentionally circular.)  See PEP 2 [2]_ for
standard library module acceptance criteria.

Once a PEP has been accepted, the reference implementation must be
completed.  When the reference implementation is complete and accepted
by the BDFL, the status will be changed to "Final".

A PEP can also be assigned status "Deferred".  The PEP author or
editor can assign the PEP this status when no progress is being made
on the PEP.  Once a PEP is deferred, the PEP editor can re-assign it
to draft status.

A PEP can also be "Rejected".  Perhaps after all is said and done it
was not a good idea.  It is still important to have a record of this
fact.

PEPs can also be replaced by a different PEP, rendering the original
obsolete.  This is intended for Informational PEPs, where version 2 of
an API can replace version 1.

PEP work flow is as follows:

.. image:: pep-0001-1.png

Some Informational and Process PEPs may also have a status of "Active"
if they are never meant to be completed.  E.g. PEP 1 (this PEP).


What belongs in a successful PEP?
=================================

Each PEP should have the following parts:

1. Preamble -- RFC 822 style headers containing meta-data about the
   PEP, including the PEP number, a short descriptive title (limited
   to a maximum of 44 characters), the names, and optionally the
   contact info for each author, etc.

2. Abstract -- a short (~200 word) description of the technical issue
   being addressed.

3. Copyright/public domain -- Each PEP must either be explicitly
   labelled as placed in the public domain (see this PEP as an
   example) or licensed under the `Open Publication License`_.

4. Specification -- The technical specification should describe the
   syntax and semantics of any new language feature.  The
   specification should be detailed enough to allow competing,
   interoperable implementations for any of the current Python
   platforms (CPython, Jython, Python .NET).

5. Motivation -- The motivation is critical for PEPs that want to
   change the Python language.  It should clearly explain why the
   existing language specification is inadequate to address the
   problem that the PEP solves.  PEP submissions without sufficient
   motivation may be rejected outright.

6. Rationale -- The rationale fleshes out the specification by
   describing what motivated the design and why particular design
   decisions were made.  It should describe alternate designs that
   were considered and related work, e.g. how the feature is supported
   in other languages.

   The rationale should provide evidence of consensus within the
   community and discuss important objections or concerns raised
   during discussion.

7. Backwards Compatibility -- All PEPs that introduce backwards
   incompatibilities must include a section describing these
   incompatibilities and their severity.  The PEP must explain how the
   author proposes to deal with these incompatibilities.  PEP
   submissions without a sufficient backwards compatibility treatise
   may be rejected outright.

8. Reference Implementation -- The reference implementation must be
   completed before any PEP is given status "Final", but it need not
   be completed before the PEP is accepted.  It is better to finish
   the specification and rationale first and reach consensus on it
   before writing code.

   The final implementation must include test code and documentation
   appropriate for either the Python language reference or the
   standard library reference.


PEP Formats and Templates
=========================

There are two PEP formats available to authors: plaintext and
reStructuredText_.

Plaintext PEPs are written in plain ASCII text, contain minimal
structural markup, and should adhere to a rigid style.  PEP 9 contains
a boilerplate template [3]_ you can use to get started writing your
plaintext PEP.

ReStructuredText_ PEPs allow for rich markup that is still quite easy
to read, but results in much better-looking and more functional HTML.
PEP 12 contains a boilerplate template [4]_ for use with
reStructuredText PEPs.

There is a Python script that converts both styles of PEPs to HTML for
viewing on the web [5]_.  Parsing and conversion of plaintext PEPs is
self-contained within the script.  reStructuredText PEPs are parsed
and converted by Docutils_ code called from the script.


PEP Header Preamble
===================

Each PEP must begin with an RFC 822 style header preamble.  The headers
must appear in the following order.  Headers marked with "*" are
optional and are described below.  All other headers are required. ::

    PEP: <pep number>
    Title: <pep title>
    Version: <cvs version string>
    Last-Modified: <cvs date string>
    Author: <list of authors' real names and optionally, email addrs>
  * Discussions-To: <email address>
    Status: <Draft | Active | Accepted | Deferred | Rejected |
             Final | Replaced>
    Type: <Standards Track | Informational | Process>
  * Content-Type: <text/plain | text/x-rst>
  * Requires: <pep numbers>
    Created: <date created on, in dd-mmm-yyyy format>
  * Python-Version: <version number>
    Post-History: <dates of postings to python-list and python-dev>
  * Replaces: <pep number>
  * Replaced-By: <pep number>

The Author header lists the names, and optionally the email addresses
of all the authors/owners of the PEP.  The format of the Author header
value must be

    Random J. User <address@dom.ain>

if the email address is included, and just

    Random J. User

if the address is not given.  For historical reasons the format
"address@dom.ain (Random J. User)" may appear in a PEP, however new
PEPs must use the mandated format above, and it is acceptable to
change to this format when PEPs are updated.

If there are multiple authors, each should be on a separate line
following RFC 2822 continuation line conventions.  Note that personal
email addresses in PEPs will be obscured as a defense against spam
harvesters.

While a PEP is in private discussions (usually during the initial
Draft phase), a Discussions-To header will indicate the mailing list
or URL where the PEP is being discussed.  No Discussions-To header is
necessary if the PEP is being discussed privately with the author, or
on the python-list or python-dev email mailing lists.  Note that email
addresses in the Discussions-To header will not be obscured.

The Type header specifies the type of PEP: Standards Track,
Informational, or Process.

The format of a PEP is specified with a Content-Type header.  The
acceptable values are "text/plain" for plaintext PEPs (see PEP 9 [3]_)
and "text/x-rst" for reStructuredText PEPs (see PEP 12 [4]_).
Plaintext ("text/plain") is the default if no Content-Type header is
present.

The Created header records the date that the PEP was assigned a
number, while Post-History is used to record the dates of when new
versions of the PEP are posted to python-list and/or python-dev.  Both
headers should be in dd-mmm-yyyy format, e.g. 14-Aug-2001.

Standards Track PEPs must have a Python-Version header which indicates
the version of Python that the feature will be released with.
Informational and Process PEPs do not need a Python-Version header.

PEPs may have a Requires header, indicating the PEP numbers that this
PEP depends on.

PEPs may also have a Replaced-By header indicating that a PEP has been
rendered obsolete by a later document; the value is the number of the
PEP that replaces the current document.  The newer PEP must have a
Replaces header containing the number of the PEP that it rendered
obsolete.


Reporting PEP Bugs, or Submitting PEP Updates
=============================================

How you report a bug, or submit a PEP update depends on several
factors, such as the maturity of the PEP, the preferences of the PEP
author, and the nature of your comments.  For the early draft stages
of the PEP, it's probably best to send your comments and changes
directly to the PEP author.  For more mature, or finished PEPs you may
want to submit corrections to the SourceForge `bug manager`_ or better
yet, the SourceForge `patch manager`_ so that your changes don't get
lost.  If the PEP author is a SourceForge developer, assign the
bug/patch to him, otherwise assign it to the PEP editor.

When in doubt about where to send your changes, please check first
with the PEP author and/or PEP editor.

PEP authors who are also Python/SourceForge committers can update the
PEPs themselves by using "cvs commit" to commit their changes.  PEP
authors with python.org access should also remember to push the
formatted PEP text out to the web by doing the following::

    % python pep2html.py -i NUM

where NUM is the number of the PEP you want to push out.  See ::

    % python pep2html.py --help

for details.


Transferring PEP Ownership
==========================

It occasionally becomes necessary to transfer ownership of PEPs to a
new champion.  In general, we'd like to retain the original author as
a co-author of the transferred PEP, but that's really up to the
original author.  A good reason to transfer ownership is because the
original author no longer has the time or interest in updating it or
following through with the PEP process, or has fallen off the face of
the 'net (i.e. is unreachable or not responding to email).  A bad
reason to transfer ownership is because you don't agree with the
direction of the PEP.  We try to build consensus around a PEP, but if
that's not possible, you can always submit a competing PEP.

If you are interested in assuming ownership of a PEP, send a message
asking to take over, addressed to both the original author and the PEP
editor <peps@python.org>.  If the original author doesn't respond to
email in a timely manner, the PEP editor will make a unilateral
decision (it's not like such decisions can't be reversed :).


References and Footnotes
========================

.. [1] This historical record is available by the normal CVS commands
   for retrieving older revisions.  For those without direct access to
   the CVS tree, you can browse the current and past PEP revisions via
   the SourceForge web site at
   http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/python/python/nondist/peps/

.. [2] PEP 2, Procedure for Adding New Modules, Faassen
   (http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0002.html)

.. [3] PEP 9, Sample Plaintext PEP Template, Warsaw
   (http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0009.html)

.. [4] PEP 12, Sample reStructuredText PEP Template, Goodger, Warsaw
   (http://www.python.org/peps/pep-0012.html)

.. [5] The script referred to here is pep2html.py, which lives in the
   same directory in the CVS tree as the PEPs themselves.  Try
   ``pep2html.py --help`` for details.  The URL for viewing PEPs on
   the web is http://www.python.org/peps/.

.. _patch manager:
   http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=5470&atid=305470

.. _feature request tracker:
   http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=355470&group_id=5470&func=browse

.. _Open Publication License: http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/

.. _reStructuredText: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html

.. _Docutils: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/

.. _bug manager:
   http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=5470&atid=105470


Copyright
=========

This document has been placed in the public domain.


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