On 13-01-06 9:45 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
On Sunday, January 06, 2013 21:22:18 Pierre Rouleau wrote:
Is this something that the most influential people in the D project want
to fix?
What exactly do you want fixed?
Really, I would like to be able to start using D at work. And be in a
position to be able to convince people to use it.
Sure, it would be great if we could know when
certain things are going to be implemented or fixed, but without people to work
on them, we can't know when that's going to happen. A lack of time and of
manpower are frequently the problem here. And if you want a particular problem
fixed, someone else wants another one fixed. Frequently, both could be
considered high priority, and the developers only have so much time. Also,
it's frequently the case that specific people are needed to fix specific issues
-
especially if we don't have new people stepping up to the plate and learning
how to do stuff - creating an even greater bottleneck.
Maybe we could get some sort of consensus on what the biggest issues are and
try and get people to focus on those, but frequently, what we really need is
for someone to step up and spend the time necessary to fix the issue. When that
happens, stuff gets done. When it doesn't, it doesn't really matter what the
biggest issues are, because there's a lack of manpower to fix them. And
frequently, each major issue requires a different set of expertise, making it
hard to for someone or even a small group of someones to work on all of the
major issues. And we only have a small group of someones.
So, if you have any suggestions on how to improve the process or otherwise
help us get stuff done, great. If you think that there's something that we can
do to better encourage participation, we're all ears. For instance, the
release process is currently being adjusted precisely because people thought
that it was a major issue and have spent the time to work out what should be
done about it. But to a great extent, I don't think we necessarily know what
needs to be changed or how it should be changed. Good ideas are required, and
we're tight enough on time and manpower as it is just trying to get done
everything that we know needs to get done.
Almost always, the key is for someone who's passionate about something to get
involved and make sure that it gets done.
And I understand and agree on all of the above points. I am trying to
see what I could do. Yes, I can start going through the list of
tickets, try to compile some info, and eventually even become one more
developer. At the moment I was trying to learn more on the development
process to get ideas on how (or whether it is possible) to improve the
predictability aspect I would need to convince people at work on the
usefulness of D.
For the moment, I will continue to read the lists, the Bugzilla tickets
(and propose better titles via comments if I see opportunities to do
so), learn how you use DDoc for the documentation, find out what is
supported by the community and its leader (which I assume is Walter) and
hopefully I can help a little somehow.
- Jonathan M Davis
--
/Pierre Rouleau
