On Sun, Mar 21, 2021 at 06:51:21PM +0100, Ralf Hemmecke wrote:
> On 21.03.21 17:49, Waldek Hebisch wrote:
> > There is misunderstanding here: you do not need to wait
> > to include another graphic framework. My impression
> > was that I am not the main opponent of new code in
> > FriCAS: when new code was proposed sometimes other
> > folks voiced strong objections...
>
> Oh, good that you say that so openly. You are very conservative and with
> strong opinion about the direction of FriCAS.
Yes, I have strong opinion about the direction of FriCAS, I do
not consider this as bad thing. Let me add that I am ready
to change my opinions if I see facts contradicting my
opinions. Concerning "very conservative", let me say that
I have some experience with Sun systems. About 1990 their
default shell was already dated, IIUC essentially the same
shell as very early Unix. In 2007 I played with Open Solaris
and it shipped the same default shell, probably bug-compatible
with very early one. I understand the reason: their commercial
customers would be unhappy it old shell scripts stopped to
work, and some scripts depend on bugs (to avoid wrong impression:
Solaris also had much newer shell, but it was not default and
some action to was needed it invoke new shell). That I consider
very conservative and I am not going to adopt such policy
for FriCAS. OTOH I am very much against "modern" trend
where program may fail to compile on few years old system
(or that few years old program fails to compile on new
system).
> I guess, we have lost
> Robert Smith for contribution to FriCAS.
Possibly. I wonder, if you were responsible for the project,
what would be your answer for his offer.
> I don't generally say that this
> conservativeness is a bad thing. Sometimes I even appreciate it after a
> while (even against my own opinion and wishes). However, it gives the
> impression that contributions are easily turned down and investing time
> in new code seems like a waste. As you say above that impression is
> wrong, but still it sometimes sounds unwelcome to new people. This is
> what I consider a problem for further and faster development of FriCAS.
> We should rather say that it is OK to just fork FriCAS and try own ideas
> and come back and convince the main developers to include new (better)
> code if it is ready and removes some deficiencies of FriCAS.
Here I have different opinion: I encourage potential contributors
to first disscuss their ideas here. Possibly we could link to
some FAQ about contributing to open source software (a lot of
folks seem to have misconceptions and such problems are not
specific to FriCAS). Extra remark: I find one thing more
offensive than quick rejection of code, namely to tell somebody
to do lenghty developement and then, when code is "ready"
reject it.
--
Waldek Hebisch
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