Dear Jason,

first things first: you correctly point out below that darcs is a
volunteer-run project. I am no less a volunteer than anyone else. I will
probably also disappoint you, because I am not going to give you a very
detailed reply.

Jason Dagit <[email protected]> writes:
> Who is "we" and where/when was this discussed?  I heard this may have
> been discussed on IRC.  Could you please provide links to the relevant
> discussion or summaries?
>
>> I'm proposing for the branch to live on
>> http://darcs.net/adventure. The current review team should stay
>> responsible for this branch, in addition to mainline (http://darcs.net).
>
> Okay.  You're asking the review team to split their attention between
> the two?  This sounds unpleasant given that as a volunteer run project
> we're perpetually understaffed and human attention is one of our most
> valuable resources.

No, I am not asking anyone to do anything and I am certainly not bossing
around the rest of the team. I am offering my work to go into
darcs. Take it or leave it. It would be much more comfortable to fork --
which is what will I do if the review team ends up disagreeing with the
branching. You don't have to like my code. You however can't stop me
from writing it.

> How would those design experiments fit into your adventure branch?

First you say you strongly disagree and now want to use it? Well, what
can I say. You can submit your code for review of course. I outlined the
rules in my original mail, although they are subject to further review
team discussion.

> Another thing to consider is that there are lots of arguments
> available, if you search for them on google, explaining why it's bad
> to throw away your code and start over.  I really hope that's not or
> plan our.  The type-witnesses were not easy to get integrated and yet
> we came up with a plan that let us put them in incrementally.  What I
> don't know, because I missed out on the previous discussions, is why
> it is not feasible to refactor the current code to include lots of QC
> properties and other QA, and then refactor mercilessly?

As ever, I'd appreciate if you did some research on your own part before
telling others how to do things.

> If we make correctness a priority from the BEGINNING of the adventure
> branch and have test driven development (or formal methods driven
> development) requirements on all code that goes in, I will feel quite
> happy about the branch.  I'll be telling everyone to use it once its
> merged back in.  I'll be singing the songs of darcs praise.  Happy
> lispy will be happy :)

I am not doing this to make anyone particularly happy. I suggest you
just write a formally verified and thoroughly tested darcs yourself. If
it turns out to work, it will probably find its users.

> If we instead, just do some testing at the end of the adventure branch
> using our current test suite then I'll be dragging my feet.  I'll be
> quite afraid of the new branch and probably stick with its predecessor
> for a few stable release cycles.  I'll be telling my friends to stay
> away from it too.  Basically, I'll be sad.  Don't make lispy sad :(

No comment.

> Therefore, I really hope we can use the adventure branch as a chance
> to make a cultural shift to evidence based correctness in all the
> patches that we accept to darcs.

No. That is a pipe dream. At least for a couple of years yet.

Yours,
   Petr.

PS: I think you may have forgotten to include your formal proofs with
your latest refactor.
_______________________________________________
darcs-users mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.osuosl.org/mailman/listinfo/darcs-users

Reply via email to