On Thursday, June 07, 2012 18:49:11 Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> Sorry for the double-post -- I already asked this in d-learn, but this may be a better place to ask.
> 
> What's the current state of affairs and roadmap for inclusion of rational number support in D?  I've come across David Simcha's work: http://cis.jhu.edu/~dsimcha/d/phobos/std_rational.html
> 
> ... and a feature request on the bugzilla: http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=7885
> 
> ... but this isn't mentioned at all in the review queue: http://prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?ReviewQueue
> 
> What's the status of work/planning for this feature and is there any kind of ETA for when it might land in Phobos?

AFAIK, dsimcha has never proposed that it be added to the review queue or Phobos. I, for one, didn't know he was working on anything of the sort. Presumably, if he has the time to work on it and thinks that it's worth adding to Phobos, he'll submit it for review eventually, but I have no idea what his plans are. Only he could answer that. If and when something gets into Phobos is very much dependent on someone being driven enough to implement it and get it through the review process. Regardless of how desirable a particular feature or module might be, unless someone steps up to the plate and champions it, it's never going to make it into Phobos. And even with the stuff that _does_ get so championed, there's rarely any real ETA on when it makes it into Phobos. It all depends on how the review process goes and how quickly it gets submitted for inclusion after having been voted in.

- Jonathan M Davis

On 09/06/12 06:44, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> AFAIK, dsimcha has never proposed that it be added to the review queue or
> Phobos. I, for one, didn't know he was working on anything of the sort.
> Presumably, if he has the time to work on it and thinks that it's worth adding
> to Phobos, he'll submit it for review eventually, but I have no idea what his
> plans are.

OK, I'll have a direct word with him and see if I can help out at all.

> Regardless of how desirable a particular feature or module might be,  unless
> someone steps up to the plate and champions it, it's never going to make it
> into Phobos. And even with the stuff that _does_ get so championed, there's
> rarely any real ETA on when it makes it into Phobos. It all depends on how
> the review process goes and how quickly it gets submitted for inclusion after
> having been voted in.

What do you think of the idea of a "priority wish list" of functionality for D and/or Phobos?  Do you think it would be a useful way to guide contributors to where they might be useful?  (I would view the priorities as being set by the core dev team but with some input from community.)

On Saturday, June 09, 2012 18:55:14 Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> What do you think of the idea of a "priority wish list" of functionality for D and/or Phobos?  Do you think it would be a useful way to guide contributors to where they might be useful?  (I would view the priorities as being set by the core dev team but with some input from community.)

In theory, it's a good idea. In practice, I question how much it will affect things. Pretty much all of the modules which have been presented for review to Phobos are modules that a particular developer personally wanted to be in Phobos and spent the time and energy required to get it there. I don't believe that there's been a single case of anyone creating a module for review simply because a lot of people wanted that particular module. The closest that we've gotten to that is when there are a bunch of people who want a particular module and one of the people who does steps up and does it (e.g. the semi- recent std.log proposal essentially came about this way).

On the whole, the problem is more one of having people with the time, expertise, and passion to write new modules for inclusion in Phobos and push them through the review process and not a problem of those kind of people looking to contribute to Phobos but not knowing what to work on. One thing that definitely pops up is people who have spent the time to create a module for their specific needs which could be adapted to the standard library given time and effort, but they don't want to (or can't) put in that time or effort.

Certainly, I could see it being the case that someone has been working on particular module not realizing that other people would want it, and a "priority wish list" could help inform them that it may be worth their time to try and get their module into Phobos. And it's obviously _possible_ that someone will look at the list and decide to go implement one of the things on the list. I just don't know how likely it is.

If you want to try and create such a list, I say go for it. It wouldn't hurt, and it may very well help. I just wouldn't hold my hopes up that it will really lead to developers going and implementing what's on the list simply because they now know that a lot of people want it.

- Jonathan M Davis