Hi Hans, I'll add my 2 cents. Others may have other thoughts.
[First Question] > We had a discussion on maintaining the Calculus package recently. So my > question is: In Julia, does a maintainer have the obligation -- say, in > some loose sense -- to accept feature requests? > > Background: I am the author of several packages (in other > languages/systems). I am doing bug fixes within hours if possible. I never > take feature requests. I am authoring packages because I am in need of some > functionality myself, not because I want to provide it to others. Great if > others are utilizing it. > I think a maintainer of a package has the obligation to be polite and open to communication. If there is some functionality that a maintainer is not willing to incorporate, a user with programming ability can add it themselves, and if that functionality is of general use, can make it available to others in a number of ways: * with coordination, the original maintainer can give commit access to the main repository * the two developers can coordinate and change METADATA.jl to point to an updated * the second user/developer can create a new package with a different name * the package can be transferred to a broader group (e.g., JuliaStats and JuliaOpt both allow a set of maintainers to support multiple packages). As you pointed out in an earlier message, Julia has a really nice community, and most people seem to be willing to be flexible with these things. > [Second Question] > There are many packages in Julia that support numerical math, e.g. > ApproxFun, BSplines, Calculus, DualNumbers, Elliptic, ODE, Polynomial or > Roots. For a newcomer (like me), wouldn't it be nice to have something like > the "task views" in R, i.e. a place where all packages are listed and > shortly described that are important in a certain application area? And > where could this be hosted to be highly visible? > I assume you've seen the lists of available packages<http://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/packages/packagelist/>, although that's not what you're asking for. It sounds like a great idea to me. I would suggest creating an issue for it, or seeing if your idea matches with any existing issue. > > [Third Question] > I am totally/a bit unsatisfied with the documentation facilities in Julia. > I have heard there are considerations on the way to develop such > facilities. Is it possible to get information about ideas and formats, such > that one could already apply it to own functions and packages? Even if the > capability to display it online is not yet available. > Totally agree. There has been a bit of discussion about this (too much, really), and some feints in that direction, but what it would really take is for one person (or a few people) to step up and take this on as a project. So far, there have been no takers--we've all been too busy working on other things (and there are plenty of other things). Thanks for the questions! Cheers, Kevin
