As anyone who has been here a little while will notice the same arguments keep re-appearing.

I believe this happens because essentially the reason D is the way it is, is often non-obvious and/or contentious and the status quo was chosen as the lesser of x evils or the greater of y options.

I think that perhaps a valuable resource for us, as a community, would be a place where people could go to see if thier idea or thought had been voiced before. If so what the various arguments for or against it (and arguments for or against those etc) plus any reasoning behind the status quo.

A wiki is probably a good format. Perhaps we could add it here:
  http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?FrontPage

What do people think?

Regan

Regan Heath wrote:

> As anyone who has been here a little while will notice the same arguments  keep re-appearing.
> 
> I believe this happens because essentially the reason D is the way it is,  is often non-obvious and/or contentious and the status quo was chosen as  the lesser of x evils or the greater of y options.

Some of the ideas keep appearing since there hasn't been a definitive
answer from Walter. Sometimes there has, but "implicitly" in the code,
or the reason behind the choice is contained in a newsgroup posting...

If you look at something like the "wish list" posted at:
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?FeatureRequestList
you'll notice that most of it is still listed as "open" ?

Maybe we should change all the 2004 issues to "dormant" or something ?

> I think that perhaps a valuable resource for us, as a community, would be  a place where people could go to see if thier idea or thought had been  voiced before. If so what the various arguments for or against it (and  arguments for or against those etc) plus any reasoning behind the status  quo.

Actually I think it would be better if formatted something like
the Perl RFC or Python PEP lists ? Those are more organized than
the just-rambling-on-newsgroup or free-for-all-wiki formats. IMHO.

Bugs have a clear place in D (i.e. the "digitalmars.D.bugs" group),
but the "request for enhancements" doesn't really have a good one ?
And just like you say, there are lots of repeated such RFEs as well.

One place is http://www.digitalmars.com/d/faq.html, naturally, but that
doesn't list "why is there no boolean" or "where is the string class"...
(and other similar such questions about the design tradeoffs made in D)

--anders

"Anders F Björklund" <afb@algonet.se> wrote in message news:dag2sh$1pb2$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Some of the ideas keep appearing since there hasn't been a definitive answer from Walter.

One reason for that is because all too often, I have given a definitive answer and the person who made the proposal sends me an angry email and leaves the forum.

99% of the proposals won't be implemented. It's not because they are bad ideas, or poorly thought out, etc. It's because if they were all implemented, D would be a bewildering mass of overlapping features. Even if I could possibly implement all of them, which I can't because proposals come in *every day*.

I have to, of necessity, be ruthless in picking what to do.

Walter is something like the unofficial wish list helpful to you ?? http://all-technology.com/eigenpolls/dwishlist/

And by votes http://all-technology.com/eigenpolls/dwishlist/story.php

Right now it is posted on the news group ones a month.
I have noticed that not enough to keep
similar suggestions from being posted on the newsgroup.

Should I change the postings to 2 times a month ?

On Sat, 09 Jul 2005 12:07:12 -0700, Walter wrote:

"Knud Sørensen" <12tkvvb02@sneakemail.com> wrote in message news:pan.2005.07.09.19.37.55.393628@sneakemail.com...
> Walter is something like the unofficial wish list helpful to you ?? http://all-technology.com/eigenpolls/dwishlist/
>
> And by votes http://all-technology.com/eigenpolls/dwishlist/story.php
>
> Right now it is posted on the news group ones a month.
> I have noticed that not enough to keep
> similar suggestions from being posted on the newsgroup.
>
> Should I change the postings to 2 times a month ?

No, I think what you're doing now is good. Thanks!

In article <dag2sh$1pb2$1@digitaldaemon.com>, =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Anders_F_Bj=F6rklund?= says...
>
>Regan Heath wrote:
>
>> As anyone who has been here a little while will notice the same arguments  keep re-appearing.
>> 
>> I believe this happens because essentially the reason D is the way it is,  is often non-obvious and/or contentious and the status quo was chosen as  the lesser of x evils or the greater of y options.
>
>Some of the ideas keep appearing since there hasn't been a definitive answer from Walter. Sometimes there has, but "implicitly" in the code, or the reason behind the choice is contained in a newsgroup posting...
>
>If you look at something like the "wish list" posted at: http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?FeatureRequestList you'll notice that most of it is still listed as "open" ?

Some (perhaps many) of those have been added by people other than an actual propopent of the idea. For example, I've added some items that seem to come up repeatedly, so that the pros and cons generated in the newsgroup will be easier to find when someone else makes the same suggestion a few months later (hence the links to the newsgroup). But I don't necessarily care enough to watch for an official reply from Walter telling us that it's not going to happen. If he really likes, it gets added as a feature of D. Usually, it doesn't get added. That's the way it usually goes.

>Maybe we should change all the 2004 issues to "dormant" or something ?

That sounds like a reasonable idea. It's a Wiki, you want to do that yourself? ;)

(I think it's more fun adding a new row, that editing an existing ones.)

..

>Actually I think it would be better if formatted something like the Perl RFC or Python PEP lists ? Those are more organized than the just-rambling-on-newsgroup or free-for-all-wiki formats. IMHO.

If someone wants to volunteer the time to do that it sounds like an improvement, but I'm sure how effective I'd be since D is mostly a one-man-show anyway.

>Bugs have a clear place in D (i.e. the "digitalmars.D.bugs" group), but the "request for enhancements" doesn't really have a good one ? And just like you say, there are lots of repeated such RFEs as well.

Also, it could be hard to get people to actually read the old RFE's.

>One place is http://www.digitalmars.com/d/faq.html, naturally, but that doesn't list "why is there no boolean" or "where is the string class"... (and other similar such questions about the design tradeoffs made in D)

Since those topics come up often, it would be nice to cover them in the official FAQ.

>--anders

jcc7

Walter wrote:

> 99% of the proposals won't be implemented. It's not because they are bad
> ideas, or poorly thought out, etc. It's because if they were all
> implemented, D would be a bewildering mass of overlapping features. Even if
> I could possibly implement all of them, which I can't because proposals come
> in *every day*.
> 
> I have to, of necessity, be ruthless in picking what to do.

I would actually imagine that the hardest part would be keeping
odd things out, rather than simply accepting any new features in.

But sometimes it is necessary, just to keep the same old ideas from
re-appearing again - especially when they are *not* to be included ?

Just thought that nailing down a few Frequently Asked Proposals
would make it easier to concentrate on getting the language "out"...

--anders