Why Guido van Rossum quit as the Python chief (BDFL)

It was the proverbial ‘end of an era’ for Python as Guido van Rossum stepped down as the Python chief, almost 3 decades since he created the programming language. It came as a shock to many Python users, and left a few bewildered. Many core developers thought this day might come, but they didn’t expect it to come so soon. However, looking at the post that Guido shared with the community, does this decision really come as a surprise?

In this article, we dive deep into the possibilities and the circumstances that could’ve played a major role in van Rossum’s resignation.

*Disclaimer: The views presented in this article are based purely on our research. They are not to be considered as inputs directly received from the Python community or Guido van Rossum himself.

What can we make of Guido’s post?

I’m pretty sure you’ve already read the mailing list post that Guido shared with the community last week. Aptly titled as ‘Transfer of Power’, the mail straightaway begins on a negative note:

“Now that PEP 572 is done, I don't ever want to have to fight so hard for a
PEP and find that so many people despise my decisions.”

Some way to start a mail. The anger, disappointment and the tiredness is quite evident. Guido goes on to state that he would be removing himself from all the decision-making processes and will be available only for a while as a core developer and a mentor.

From the tone of the mail, the three main reasons for his departure can be figured out quite easily:

• Guido felt there were questions around his decision-making and overall administration capabilities. The backlash on the PEP 572 is a testament to this.
• van Rossum is 62 now. Maybe the stress of leading this project for close to 30 years has finally taken a toll on his health, as he wryly talked about the piling medical issues. This is also quite evident from the last sentence of his mail: “I'm tired, and need a very long break”
• Guido thinks this is the right time for the baton to be passed over to the other core committers. He leaves everything for the core developers to figure out - from finalizing the PEPs (Python Enhancement Proposal) to deciding how the new core developers are inducted.

Understanding the backlash behind PEP 572

For a mature language such as Python, you’d think there wouldn’t be much left to get excited about. However, a proposal to add a new feature to Python - PEP 572 - has caused a furore in the Python community in the last few months.

What PEP 572 is all about

The idea behind PEP 572 is quite simple - to allow assignment to variables within expressions. To make things simpler, consider the following lines of code in Python:

a = b  - this is a simple assignment statement, while:

a == b - this is a test for equality

With PEP 572 comes a brand new operator := which is available in some other programming languages, and is an equivalent of the in-expression. So the way you would use this operator would be:

while a:=b.read(10):

print(a)

Looks like a simple statement, isn’t it? Keep printing a while it is in a certain range of b. So what’s all the hue and cry about?

In principle, the way := is used signifies that the value of an expression is assigned and returned to whatever code is using it, almost as if no assignment ever happened. This can get really tricky when complex expressions are involved. Ideally, an expression assignment is useful when one needs to retain the result of that expression while it is being used for some other purposes. The use of := is against this best practice, and has therefore led to many disagreements.

The community response to PEP 572

Many Python users thought PEP 572 was a bad idea due to the reasons mentioned above. They did not hide their feelings regarding this too. In fact, some of the comments were quite brutal:



Even some of the core developers were unhappy with this proposal, saying it did not fit the fundamental Python best practice, i.e. preference for simplicity over complexity. This practice is a part of the PEP 20, titled ‘The Zen of the Python’.



As the Python BDFL, van Rossum personally signed off each PEP. This is in stark contrast to how other programming languages such as PHP finalize their proposals, i.e., by voting on them.

On the PEP 572 objections, Guido’s response befitted that of a BDFL perfectly:



Some developers still disagreed with this proposal, believing that it deviated from the standard best practices and rather reflected van Rossum’s preferred style of coding. So much so that van Rossum had to ask the committers to give him time to respond to the queries.

Eventually the PEP 572 was accepted by Guido van Rossum, as he settled the matter with the following note:

Thank you all. I will accept the PEP as is. I am happy to accept *clarification* updates to the PEP if people care to submit them as PRs to the peps repo, and that could even (to some extent) include summaries of discussion we've had, or outright rejected ideas. But even without any of those I think the PEP is very clear so I will not wait very long (maybe a week).

Normally, in case of some other language, such an argument could have gone on forever, with both the sides reluctant to give in. The progress of the language would be stuck in a limbo as a result of this polarity. With Guido gone now, one cannot help but wonder if this is going to be case with Python going forward.

Could van Rossum been pressurized less if he had adopted a consensus-based voting system to sign proposals off too? And if that was the case, would the proposal still have gone through an opposing majority of core developers?

“Tired of the hatred”

It would be wrong to say that the BDFL quit mainly because of how working on PEP 572 left a bitter taste in his mouth. However, it is fair to say that the negativity surrounding PEP 572 must’ve pushed van Rossum off the ledge finally. The fact that he thinks stepping down from his role as Python chief would mean people would not ‘despise his decisions’ - must’ve played a major role in his announcement.

Guido’s decision to quit was rather an inevitable outcome of a series of past bad experiences accrued over the years with backlashes over his decisions on Python’s direction. Leading one of the most successful and long running open source projects in the world is no joke, and it brings more than its fair share of burden to carry. In many ways, CEOs of big tech companies have it easier. For starters, they’ve a lot of funding and they mainly worry about how to make their shareholders happy (make more money). More importantly, they aren’t directly exposed to the end users the way open source leaders are, for every decision they make.

What’s next for Guido?

Guido van Rossum isn’t going away for good. His mail states that he will still be around as a core dev, and as a mentor to other budding developers for some time. He says just wants to move away from the leadership role, away from all the responsibilities that once made him the BDFL. His tweet corroborates this:

https://twitter.com/gvanrossum/status/1017546023227424768?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet



Call him a dictator if you will, his contributions to Python cannot be taken away. From being a beginner’s coding language to being used in enterprise applications - Python’s rise under Van Rossum as one of the most popular and versatile programming languages in the world has been incredible. Perhaps the time was right for the sun to set, and the PEP 572 scenario and the circumstances surrounding it might just have given Guido the platform to ride away into the sunset.

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