On Wednesday, 19 December 2012 at 21:58:12 UTC, foobar wrote:
On Wednesday, 19 December 2012 at 21:30:44 UTC, Andrei
Alexandrescu wrote:
On 12/19/12 4:23 PM, foobar wrote:
On Wednesday, 19 December 2012 at 20:51:57 UTC, deadalnix
wrote:
On Wednesday, 19 December 2012 at 19:56:47 UTC, Rob T wrote:
Do we all agree that we need a "stable" branch?
No. Stable isn't a boolean criteria. You'll find different
degree of
stability going from not so stable (dev version) to very
stable (dead
project).
The wiki already mention a process with a branch per version
of the
software.
Let's generalize this point for the sake of reaching
consensus - we need
_at least one_ "stable" branch which is separate from
"staging". We are
still conflicted as to what should be the maximum amount. For
the
record, I'm with the camp advocating at most a fixed amount
countable on
one hand. That's an O(1) with a very small constant as
opposed to the
O(n) suggestion by Andrei. I hope Andrei appreciates the
order of
efficiency here.
I agree with one "stable" branch.
Andrei
That's great!
What about the other high level points summarized eloquently by
H. S. Teoh?
Any other high level points or goals the process should
incorporate?
Personally, I think the whole pre-development stage needs to
get looks at -
Specifically having some sort of at least high-level *binding*
planning - road map, mile stones, todo lists. This should give
more weight to DIPs.
DIPs at the moment have no weight whatsoever. The attributes
showed all the major flows in the decision making process:
1. Feature idea comes up in discussion.
2. Feature was discussed heavily by the community reaching some
design consensus.
3. Plan is abandoned/forgotten due to Walter's objections - not
to the design but the idea itself.
4. Feature comes up again in discussion, thus returning to
point 1 above in infinite loop.
** 5. After many cycles spanning years, the community accepts
that the feature will never be added despite a consensus and
constant demand.
5.1 Feature is added by surprise with deviations from consensus
design, optionally integrates purely with other parts of the
language.
5.1.1 Feature is final!
Another prime example is the auto-ref feature which we are
stuck with because Walter apparently understood differently
from what you intended.
This is highly coupled with Walter, making it very hard to
agree on a high level design and delegate its implementation to
other developers. As far as I see, No major feature was ever
implemented by someone other than Walter and he has final say
on all design decisions.
I agree with Walter's motives, he wants to stabilize the
language and by resisting to feature suggestions he sets a very
high bar for any major change. That is a good thing. The
problem is that it all happens in his head and not in plain
sight. The community has no idea what his plans are, I'm not
convinced that even you get all the details. That means no
planning ahead and no delegation. Had we known that Walter sign
off featureX but just doesn't have the time to implement it,
than it still would be on the official *binding* todo list and
someone else would be able to implement this feature. As the
situation now stands, no one will bother doing any significant
work if it has a high chance of being entirely dismissed by
Walter.
The high-level steps as I see them:
1. The community discusses the merits and costs of the suggested
feature and a consensus must be reached regarding adding such a
feature.
2. An initial design must be provided - also with consensus.
including this parts:
2.a. Suggested semantics of the feature - describe as precisely
as possible
2.b. All interactions with other language features must be
carefully examined and listed.
2.c An initial syntax agreed upon by the community.
3. Feature is implemented and after reaching some agreed upon
level of stability is than field tested by the public.
3.1 Based on public feedback, feature design can be refined and
bugs are fixed until consensus is reached that feature is ready
to be finalized and merged to the next stable release.
It's vague on purpose - the exact details of how each point above
is approved is to be decided later. The main principle is that
approved planned features should be listed on the road map and
point to their DIP with description of their design. Rejected
features are also listed as DIPs with the rationale for the
rejection, this is to avoid wasting time on repeat discussing
them and requesting them.
Ultimate goal for all this is making the planning process as
transparent as possible for the community.
