On 05-12-2012 22:05, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 05, 2012 21:32:37 Alex Rønne Petersen wrote:
>> On 05-12-2012 17:10, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, December 05, 2012 15:10:59 Pragma Tix wrote:
>>>> Years ago I have suggested to establish an incubator project.
>>>
>>> It's been suggested a few times, but no one ever does it. As with a lot of
>>> things around here, unless someone steps up and champions it, it isn't
>>> going to happen.
>>>
>>> - Jonathan M Davis
>>
>> In this case, though, there isn't really much to *do*. People just need
>> to send pull requests when they have a module they feel is ready for
>> field testing.
>
> Yes. But I think that that's completely inappropriate for putting into Phobos.
> We would actually need a separate project for that. And someone would need to
> set up and manage that project. Given that they wouldn't be doing code reviews
> or maintaining the code or whatnot, it's not at all the same as getting
> someone to take the time to produce a large piece of functionality for Phobos
> and might ultimately end up not taking much time from the person leading the
> project. But someone still needs to step up and do it. And no one has done
> that. Several have suggested it, and a number of us have agreed that it's a
> good idea, but as long as no one actually takes the initiative and actually
> does it, it's just a nice idea.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis
>

Separate project? That kind of defeats the entire purpose: Making the to-be-tested module readily available to everyone...

-- 
Alex Rønne Petersen
alex@lycus.org
http://lycus.org

On Wed, Dec 05, 2012 at 10:52:09PM +0100, Alex Rønne Petersen wrote:
> On 05-12-2012 22:05, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> >On Wednesday, December 05, 2012 21:32:37 Alex Rønne Petersen wrote:
[...]
> >>In this case, though, there isn't really much to *do*. People just need to send pull requests when they have a module they feel is ready for field testing.
> >
> >Yes. But I think that that's completely inappropriate for putting into Phobos.  We would actually need a separate project for that. And someone would need to set up and manage that project. Given that they wouldn't be doing code reviews or maintaining the code or whatnot, it's not at all the same as getting someone to take the time to produce a large piece of functionality for Phobos and might ultimately end up not taking much time from the person leading the project. But someone still needs to step up and do it. And no one has done that. Several have suggested it, and a number of us have agreed that it's a good idea, but as long as no one actually takes the initiative and actually does it, it's just a nice idea.
[...]
> Separate project? That kind of defeats the entire purpose: Making the to-be-tested module readily available to everyone...
[...]

Yeah, doing a separate project pretty much defeats the entire purpose. It will have limited availability (not everyone will know where to look for it) and limited incentive to be used (why install another package manually, much less an *experimental* one?).

I say we should just create a staging/ directory in Phobos alongside std/, and put the experimental/staging stuff there. With a big fat notice that everything in staging/ is fair game for incompatible API changes and breakages without any warning.

This will (1) encourage more users to test the new code, since it's already sitting right there alongside the official part of Phobos, and (2) when it comes time to accept it into std/, it's a trivial rename rather than a possibly messy code merge from a foreign repo.


T

-- 
To provoke is to call someone stupid; to argue is to call each other stupid.

On Wednesday, 5 December 2012 at 21:05:30 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> But I think that that's completely inappropriate for putting into Phobos.

I'd love to try out the new stuff if its convient enough...
I dont want to go jumping around github, pick up the "staging" material, put it into my current dev system and then play.
It would be *much* nicer if its part of Phobos

On Wednesday, 5 December 2012 at 22:32:14 UTC, Joshua Niehus wrote:
> It would be *much* nicer if its part of Phobos

We could always make non-phobos dev projects included in the dmd distribution zip... then the dev processes remain whatever and people still get them easily enough.

On Wednesday, December 05, 2012 22:52:09 Alex Rønne Petersen wrote:
> Separate project? That kind of defeats the entire purpose: Making the to-be-tested module readily available to everyone...

It makes sense to me to have a separate package in Phobos for stuff that has already been reviewed and is planned to be put into Phobos but we want to make sure that it's 100% solid before committing to its API permanently. It does not make sense to me to other stuff in there. That would be endorsing stuff that isn't necessarily even close to a good enough state to go into Phobos. And how would you even decide what went in there? I really don't think that any kind of incubator project should go into Phobos-proper.

- Jonathan M Davis

On 05-12-2012 23:42, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 05, 2012 22:52:09 Alex Rønne Petersen wrote:
>> Separate project? That kind of defeats the entire purpose: Making the
>> to-be-tested module readily available to everyone...
>
> It makes sense to me to have a separate package in Phobos for stuff that has
> already been reviewed and is planned to be put into Phobos but we want to make
> sure that it's 100% solid before committing to its API permanently. It does
> not make sense to me to other stuff in there. That would be endorsing stuff that
> isn't necessarily even close to a good enough state to go into Phobos. And how
> would you even decide what went in there? I really don't think that any kind
> of incubator project should go into Phobos-proper.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis
>

How do we decide, today, what goes into Phobos proper?

1. The community expresses some kind of common need.
2. There is universal agreement that the feature should be in Phobos.
3. Somebody takes the time to write a module for inclusion.
4. The module is submitted for review.
5. If review passes, the module is included; otherwise, it is refined and goto 4.

It's usually the community that drives the decisions about what's appropriate for Phobos and what isn't (i.e. at point 2). If we reach stage 3 in the aforementioned process, the module can be included in the staging package in Phobos proper for field testing if this is necessary before the initial review (this will obviously vary on a case-by-case basis).

If, after the staging period (say, 3 months AKA a release cycle), there is agreement that the module doesn't fit into Phobos after all (for whatever reason), it can simply be removed from the staging package. Otherwise, lessons learned from the staging period can be taken into account, the module refined, and submitted for review (point 4).

This seems like a perfectly sane model to me.

-- 
Alex Rønne Petersen
alex@lycus.org
http://lycus.org

On Wed, 5 Dec 2012, Alex R?nne Petersen wrote:
> On 05-12-2012 22:05, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> > On Wednesday, December 05, 2012 21:32:37 Alex R?nne Petersen wrote:
> > > On 05-12-2012 17:10, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday, December 05, 2012 15:10:59 Pragma Tix wrote:
> > > > > Years ago I have suggested to establish an incubator project.
> > > > 
> > > > It's been suggested a few times, but no one ever does it. As with a lot
> > > > of
> > > > things around here, unless someone steps up and champions it, it isn't
> > > > going to happen.
> > > > 
> > > > - Jonathan M Davis
> > > 
> > > In this case, though, there isn't really much to *do*. People just need to send pull requests when they have a module they feel is ready for field testing.
> > 
> > Yes. But I think that that's completely inappropriate for putting into
> > Phobos.
> > We would actually need a separate project for that. And someone would need
> > to
> > set up and manage that project. Given that they wouldn't be doing code
> > reviews
> > or maintaining the code or whatnot, it's not at all the same as getting
> > someone to take the time to produce a large piece of functionality for
> > Phobos
> > and might ultimately end up not taking much time from the person leading the
> > project. But someone still needs to step up and do it. And no one has done
> > that. Several have suggested it, and a number of us have agreed that it's a
> > good idea, but as long as no one actually takes the initiative and actually
> > does it, it's just a nice idea.
> > 
> > - Jonathan M Davis
> > 
> 
> Separate project? That kind of defeats the entire purpose: Making the to-be-tested module readily available to everyone...

IMHO it must be separate to gain the speed and evolution that experimental suggests.  It should not be tied to the phobos release schedule. Additionally, the set of people should be separate (though could overlap). There's more downsides to being in the same repo and same release process as there are upsides, as far as I see it.

My 2 cents,
Brad

On Wednesday, 5 December 2012 at 22:42:59 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 05, 2012 22:52:09 Alex Rønne Petersen wrote:
>> Separate project? That kind of defeats the entire purpose: Making the
>> to-be-tested module readily available to everyone...
>
> It makes sense to me to have a separate package in Phobos for stuff that has
> already been reviewed and is planned to be put into Phobos but we want to make
> sure that it's 100% solid before committing to its API permanently. It does
> not make sense to me to other stuff in there. That would be endorsing stuff that
> isn't necessarily even close to a good enough state to go into Phobos. And how
> would you even decide what went in there? I really don't think that any kind
> of incubator project should go into Phobos-proper.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

That make sense to me. Isn't it what we are talking about here ?