On Tuesday, 26 January 2016 at 15:02:51 UTC, Joakim wrote:
OK, I finally know what you disagree with. The fundamental problem is that without commercial funding, all OSS contributions are voluntary, usually done during their spare time, while focused design takes time, a lot of it. Without commercial backing to fund that time, it is difficult for most to work towards that high level of technical design. Perhaps that's why OSS devs spend most of their time coding, they want to focus what little time they have on getting some code out.
It is true that it is easier to jump in and out of "evolutionary coding" than focused design, but that's more of a convenience issue...
You can achieve a lot by cutting down the scope and use a divide and conquer strategy. So I don't think it is the most limiting factor, unless you try to implement an existing bloated standard like C++ or HTML5.
I don't think consensus has been the issue as much as time, which is the killer for any OSS or voluntary project.
I think one generally can get more done by having a design that is ready and that is partitioned into "implementable units". Design the APIs for a standard library up front, provide minimal proof-of-concept implementation, let other people replace it with production quality code.
