On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 8:32 AM, Reinier Zwitserloot <[email protected]>wrote:

>
> On Sep 15, 11:28 pm, Bob Lee <[email protected]> wrote:
>
[snip]


> In regards to the coin form: You didn't answer my question, Joe, you
> just went on the defense. Why not accept proposals based on less
> officious bits and more useful bits, and make decisions earlier? You
>

Why do you ask rhetorical questions suggesting things that were actually
already done?

For example, the Coin form did *not* require JLS-level text.  It requested
less formal text in a guided attempt to expose all relevant issues.

The "for further consideration" step was a staged acceptance procedure.
 This would have been done more formally; the procedures for any coin-like
future effort will no doubt be revised based on experiences in coin.


> yourself said string switch took you 8+ hours to write up including
> feedback. You're the coin lead, you knew it had a good chance of
> making it. You're a JLS and langtools expert. You know exactly what
> you want from the proposal. T


Which included writing a *thorough* proposal as an example for others.


> he people you want input from would have
> needed 24 full hours or more, and would instead have the knowledge
> that the effort has at best slim chances of making it in. Why are you
> surprised the community isn't putting in as many proposals as you
> wanted?


I would actually have preferred many fewer proposals of higher quality being
submitted. Being able to focus on 10-20 proposals would have been more
producive.  The proposals could have been moderated before hitting the list
to provide an initial vetting, but at least this first time around we did
want to turn people away before "approaching the doorstep." Future projects
may make different tradeoffs.

I will repeat: no one was obliged to send in proposals to Project Coin.
 Attempts were made to set expectations before the call for proposals
started.  Evolving the language in a responsible fashion is a lot fo work.
 Coin invited others to participate in that work and, yes, that work can be
time consuming.  My numerous blog entries on the subject should have made
clear changing the Java language is not a trivial undertaking.

When writing my proposal, I had a copy of "So you want to change the Java
Programming Language..." (
http://blogs.sun.com/darcy/entry/so_you_want_to_change) in view and made
liberal use of the index and table of contents of the JLS.  Important
qualities for writing the proposal are being dilligent and methodical.

[snip]


> (I know that's not how you've written up string, but exact
> implementation is irrelevant at the decision stage of the process, as
> long as its obvious it won't be particularly difficult to find a
> workable one).
>

While the exact implementation details are not needed, it is important to
know the features is *implementable* at reasonable cost, which a less
complete proposal does not confirm.

-Joe

>

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