On Thu, Feb 22, 2001 at 05:12:05PM -0500, Adam Turoff wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 22, 2001 at 01:41:22PM -0800, Edward Peschko wrote:
> > On Thu, Feb 22, 2001 at 04:04:31PM -0500, Adam Turoff wrote:
> > > 1) The RFC was a free-for-all brainstorming process. Intentionally.
> >
> > right, and your point is that brainstorming should cease(?)
>
> Yes. Everyone (else) seems to agree that Larry has a tough enough
> job to do right now without increasing his workload by extending
> the RFC process.
hey, look, I'm not saying that larry should be inundated with new RFCs. I agree
that the RFCs that he has should form a 'cutoff'. And that any new
design documents should form the basis of a secondary cutoff. All I'm asking
for is either:
a) a new mechanism for being able to express RFC-like things
b) an extension of the existing mechanism.
If you want to take the things that I'm writing, archive them, and then display
them at some future date in RFC round 2, that's fine with me. I agree that they
shouldn't be part of larry's 'task' ( although if he wants to make them part,
that's an option up to him. Personally, if I was doing what he's doing, I'd
want as much help as I could get.)
> > yeah, and there are not nearly enough of these 'features', 'comments', 'what
> > have you' available. There is a *lot more to say* in this type of forum.
>
> That's one opinion.
Ok, that *is* one opinion, but you've basically limited my ability to prove this
opinion by saying 'whoa.. we are not accepting any more RFCs.'. How am I
supposed to prove anything if we leave it to be all academic?
I say that RFCs could get better and could be a very productive part in perl
design for the long haul. You say they cannot.
How can we settle this? Well, give me a chance to design/implement my RFC
editor. Give me my chance to post RFCs. See if it works. If it doesn't, then
it doesn't. If it does, it does. Its the same as default warnings - either
they will work or they will not. People will either accept them or not. But
IMO its not very productive to say you *cannot* do something period.
> That doesn't sound like a compelling case to unlimit the process.
>
> Perl6 isn't a never-ending RFC gathering exercise. It's a community
> rewrite of Perl.
I never said that RFCs would go on alone, devoid of any other process. I very
much want them to go along in tandem with things like PDD. I want one to
complement the other.
> That statement significantly misrepresents and underestimates the
> nature of Perl. Perl4 and Perl5 were not fixed in stone, and they both
> went into interesting unforseen directions (including tkperl/oraperl and
> Inline/Perligata, respectively).
yeah, and all I'm asking is that there is freedom to document, to order that
process. I want to have a way of making conversation 'show-stoppers', to
document threads and to stop the banging of heads on the wall that was
perl5-porters. And that's why I want it ongoing. And that's why I'm willing
to put the effort into making it user-friendly enough to *make* it ongoing.
Hell, we could call the RFC bin the 'perl suggestion box' - it could be a way
for ordinary users to give the ideas they have to the perl community, to get
involved. And maybe as prelude to contributing to CPAN or the core, who knows.
> Perl6 will not be set in stone, either, but the baseline needs to be
> complete enough to accomodate current needs and desires, and flexible
> enough to invent the rest.
So you should have no problems with writing down these things in an order
to give people an understanding of what's going on? Or giving people the
creative outlet for suggesting their ideas?
Look, I'm sick of meta-arguing. If you want to get ahold of me privately
(by phone if necessary) I'm sure we can hash this out. I'll refrain from writing
anything 'official looking' until we get this issue settled, but I'd
appreciate the courtesy to get it settled in the first place.
Ed
