Dicebot:

> No one but Walter / Andrei can do anything about it. Right now we are in weird situation when they call for "lieutenants" but are not ready to abandon decision power. It can't possibly work that way. No amount of volunteer effort will help when so many PR stall waiting for resolution comment from one of language "generals".

It seems an important topic. Pull reverts (like: https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/commit/e5f7f41d253aacc601be64b5a1e4f24cd5ecfc32 ) aren't process failures, they should be normal parts of the dmd/Phobos development process. Even if 5-8% of the merges gets reverted, it's still OK. And now there is the cherry picking, so it's hard to pollute betas with bad patches.

Bye,
bearophile

On Wednesday, 9 July 2014 at 23:58:39 UTC, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>
> So here's a first stab at refining (and extending) what 'scope' should be:
>
In general, I like it, but can scopedness be inferred?  The impression I get from this is we're supposed to manually annotate every scoped everything, which IMO kind of moots the benefits in a broad sense.

If it _cannot_ be inferred (even if imperfectly), then I wonder if it doesn't make more sense to invert the proposed default and require annotation when scope restrictions need to be eased.  The ideal seems like it could be a major blow against non-local errors, but relying on convention isn't desirable.

Of course, in fairness, I may be misunderstanding the application of this entirely...?

-Wyatt

On 7/9/14, 11:59 PM, deadalnix wrote:
> On Wednesday, 9 July 2014 at 19:50:18 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>>>> 8. NotNull!T type
>>>>
>>>> For those that want a non-nullable reference type. This should be
>>>> doable
>>>> as a library type.
>>> No.
>>
>> Rationale?
>
> Please, we've gone through this again and again and again and again.

Yes, the arguments come and go by in forum discussions. To avoid this we need a well-written DIP that has a section illustrating the insufficiencies of library solutions, and then proposes the few needed additions to the language that make the thing work properly. Other language communities have done this with good results.

Andrei

On 7/10/14, 12:21 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 7/10/2014 12:03 AM, deadalnix wrote:
>> So runtime error or php style better anything than nothing for
>> something that
>> can be checked statically...
>
> I don't understand your comment.

It's very simple. The semantics you propose is move with the syntax of copy. Following the implicit move, the source of it is surprisingly modified (emptied).

That doesn't work. There is a humongous body of knowledge accumulated in C++ with std::auto_ptr. That artifact has been quite the show, including people who swore by it (!). We'd do good to simply draw from that experience instead of reenacting it.


Andrei

On 7/10/14, 12:54 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 7/10/2014 12:23 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 7/9/2014 11:59 PM, deadalnix wrote:
>>> On Wednesday, 9 July 2014 at 19:50:18 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>>>>>> 8. NotNull!T type
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For those that want a non-nullable reference type. This should be
>>>>>> doable
>>>>>> as a library type.
>>>>> No.
>>>>
>>>> Rationale?
>>>
>>> Please, we've gone through this again and again and again and again.
>>
>> Please point me to where it was.
>
> Or better yet, what is your proposal?

DIP please. -- Andrei

On Thursday, 10 July 2014 at 13:09:42 UTC, bearophile wrote:
> Dicebot:
>
>> No one but Walter / Andrei can do anything about it. Right now we are in weird situation when they call for "lieutenants" but are not ready to abandon decision power. It can't possibly work that way. No amount of volunteer effort will help when so many PR stall waiting for resolution comment from one of language "generals".
>
> It seems an important topic. Pull reverts (like: https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/commit/e5f7f41d253aacc601be64b5a1e4f24cd5ecfc32 ) aren't process failures, they should be normal parts of the dmd/Phobos development process. Even if 5-8% of the merges gets reverted, it's still OK. And now there is the cherry picking, so it's hard to pollute betas with bad patches.
>
> Bye,
> bearophile

Yes. An advantage of a structured formal release process is that it frees up development to make mistakes in the short term.

On Thursday, 10 July 2014 at 12:54:19 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
> On Thursday, 10 July 2014 at 12:13:03 UTC, bearophile wrote:
>> Dicebot:
>>
>>> I can't blame Sonke or anyone else for not wanting to waste his time on pushing more stuff upstream considering how miserable contribution experience is right now.
>>
>> This was one of the causes of the creation of Tango and its fiasco, so better to not repeat that.
>>
>> Bye,
>> bearophile
>
> No one but Walter / Andrei can do anything about it. Right now we are in weird situation when they call for "lieutenants" but are not ready to abandon decision power. It can't possibly work that way. No amount of volunteer effort will help when so many PR stall waiting for resolution comment from one of language "generals".

To be fair to Walter/Andrei, you need to be clear who your lieutenant is before you can delegate to them.

Who has stepped up to take charge of concurrency in D?

On Thursday, 10 July 2014 at 14:09:41 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
> To be fair to Walter/Andrei, you need to be clear who your lieutenant is before you can delegate to them.
>
> Who has stepped up to take charge of concurrency in D?

I think it should be other way around - announcing slot with listed responsibilities / decision power and asking for volunteers, same as it was done with release process "tzar" (kudos Andrew).

Just "stepping up" is a no-op action without explicit delegation. Also I believe every such domain needs two persons in charge and not just one - for example, Sean Kelly is most suitable candidate for such role but who accept his PR then? :)

On Thursday, 10 July 2014 at 14:14:20 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
> On Thursday, 10 July 2014 at 14:09:41 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
>> To be fair to Walter/Andrei, you need to be clear who your lieutenant is before you can delegate to them.
>>
>> Who has stepped up to take charge of concurrency in D?
>
> I think it should be other way around - announcing slot with listed responsibilities / decision power and asking for volunteers, same as it was done with release process "tzar" (kudos Andrew).
>
> Just "stepping up" is a no-op action without explicit delegation. Also I believe every such domain needs two persons in charge and not just one - for example, Sean Kelly is most suitable candidate for such role but who accept his PR then? :)

@ Walter & Andrei
Would a list of subject areas that require delegation be a good idea to put on the wiki? A list of positions, both available and filled?

On 7/10/14, 5:54 AM, Dicebot wrote:
> On Thursday, 10 July 2014 at 12:13:03 UTC, bearophile wrote:
>> Dicebot:
>>
>>> I can't blame Sonke or anyone else for not wanting to waste his time
>>> on pushing more stuff upstream considering how miserable contribution
>>> experience is right now.
>>
>> This was one of the causes of the creation of Tango and its fiasco, so
>> better to not repeat that.
>>
>> Bye,
>> bearophile
>
> No one but Walter / Andrei can do anything about it. Right now we are in
> weird situation when they call for "lieutenants" but are not ready to
> abandon decision power.

In the military (where the metaphor has been drawn for) there are lieutenants and there's no abandonment of decision power. Of course I wouldn't push the simile too much.

> It can't possibly work that way. No amount of
> volunteer effort will help when so many PR stall waiting for resolution
> comment from one of language "generals".

I'll make a pass, but on the face of it I disagree.

There's just lots and lots and lots of obviously good things that just don't get done until Walter or I do them. Last example I remember is video links for the DConf 2014 talks on dconf.org. The SMALLEST and OBVIOUSLY GOOD THING anyone could imagine. Someone on reddit mentioned we should put them there. Nobody in the community did anything about it until I posted the pull request for day 1 (http://goo.gl/9EUXv1) and Walter pulled it (http://goo.gl/O22dsa).

In the meantime, everybody's busy arguing the minutia of logo redesign. The length (not existence) of that thread is a piece of evidence of what's wrong with our community.

Looking at https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/pulls, I agree there are a few controversial pull requests that are explicitly waiting for me, such as https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/pull/1010. I'd need a fair amount of convincing that that's a frequent case. Looking at the second oldest pull request (https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/pull/1138) that's just a documentation pull, on which I myself last asked about status on March 15.

Furthermore there are just a good amount of pull requests that have nothing to do with any leadership. E.g. https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/pull/1527 is some apparently work that's just sitting there abandoned.

Switching to newer pull requests, there are simple and obviously good pull requests that just sit there for anyone to pull. And that includes you, Dicebot, since a few seconds ago. Since you don't mince words when criticizing the leadership you may as well put your money where your mouth is. https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/pull/2300 for example is simple, obviously good, and could be pulled in a minute by any of our 24, pardon, 25 core pullers who has a basic understanding of @trusted.

Then there's stuff I have no expertise in such as https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/pull/2307. Not only I'm not on hook for that, I better not discuss and pull that and leave it to someone who knows curl better.

Of course that doesn't undo the fact that Walter and I are on hook for a number of things. What I'm saying is I disagree with the allegation that "no amount of volunteer effort will help". From the looks of things, we're in dire need of volunteer effort.


Andrei