When paultag recently announced a project to try to move debian infrastructure to python3, my first thought was how large that undertaking would likely be. It seems like a classic engineering task, full of work and nit-picky details to get right, useful/necessary in the long-term, painful in the short-term, and if you manage to pull it off successfully, the best you can usually hope for is that no one will notice that it was done at all.
I always find that kind of task a little off-putting and difficult to tackle, but I was happy to see someone driving the project, since it does need to get done. Debian is potentially also in a position to help the upstream python community, because we have a pretty good view of what things are being used, at least within our own ecosystem.
I'm happy to say that i also missed one of the other great benefits of paultag's audacious proposal, which is how it has engaged people who already knew about debian but who aren't yet involved. Evidence of this engagement is already visible on the py3porters-devel mailing list. But if that wasn't enough, I ran into a friend recently who told me, "Hey, I found a way to contribute to debian finally!" and pointed me to the py3-porters project. People want to contribute to the project, and are looking for ways in.
So cheers to the people who propose audacious projects and make them inviting to everyone, newcomers included. And cheers to the people who step up to potentially daunting work, stake out a task, roll up their sleeves, and pitch in. Even if the py3porters project doesn't move all of debian's python infrastructure to pyt3 as fast as paultag wants it to, i think it's already a win for the project as a whole. I am looking forward to seeing what comes out of it (and it's reminding me i need to port some of my own python work, too!)
The next time you stumble over something big that needs doing in debian, even something that might seem impossible, please make it inviting, and dive in. The rest of the project will grow and improve from the attempt.
Tags: py3-porters