Dear All,
I thought I should just report progress. It’s been quite a week. I’m
sorry that I’ve got less responsive towards the end of it. We’re packing
up the company I work for, and once I’d put my desk in a skip and trundled
off my chair for re-sale, it got hard to watch the lists.
We are doing well, but still light on the skills and talents needed,
particularly on the windows side (though good to have John aboard) and
project life-cycle, which will make doing a release hard. If you have any
ideas where we might find interested developers, please let me know.
We have quite a few people interested in builds. David has handed over the
build machine software and some notes to me. I have created a forum on
Sourceforge for the build team use – it was to have been a mailing list,
but there are still some administration wrinkles to iron out. Rene has
agreed to ‘head-up’ the team and sort out the hosting and see if we can aim
at something like what David provided. Guys, let me know when you are
ready for Davids material.
We had some development this week and with it some interaction, and Rick
pointed out that one role missing from the grid is the Lead Architect.
I have been giving the whole architecture area some thought. One important
role of the Architects is to act as a gatekeeper and prevent inconsistency
and ‘unrexxishness’ from creeping in to the language. This will mean from
time to time turning down commits or patches and requires a thorough
understanding of the language and implementation. It also means taking
responsibility for any mistakes made in this area. Another area is guiding
the overall direction of the language development. Rick has been
performing all of these roles. We do have an Architectural Review Board
(ARB) appointed by the RexxLa, but it has not sat for some time. I
understand that within IBM an ARB is a body with control over the project
and has an absolute veto on changes, and that model is probably not helpful
here where we are working with a team of volunteers. Three Rexx Grandees
Mike, Rene and Rony have indicated a willingness to serve on an ARB that
meets, which would have more of an advice remit than an absolute veto. I
have not checked this with them, but I think that offer does not mean that
they would be willing to do the gatekeeper role and monitor every commit
and patch.
I think in this area, when problems arise, there is almost always a correct
answer or an optimum answer to be arrived at by discussion, taking into
account the need to keep the Rexx aesthetic whilst enhancing the language
or fixing problems, and this can often be reached by the kind of mature
discussion we saw on the RFE’s this week. I hope most of these questions
will be handled in this way, but realistically there will occasionally be a
need for someone to exercise authority and take responsibility, and my
proposal in these cases is that I will act as the gatekeeper and make those
decisions and take that responsibility where necessary. I do not have the
in-depth understanding of the product to spot potential problems so I will
largely be relying on the developers to bring them to my attention and
advise on them where necessary. Then if I make the wrong decision, and
cannot be reasoned out of it, developers can appeal to the ARB and I will
rely on them to arbitrate.
Other than that, I hope the ARB will meet regularly to review progress and
report back to the development community with their hopes and advice on the
direction that the language takes.
I have a feeling that the week ahead will be just as difficult for me as
the week past, and I also sense that some of you are eagerly getting on
with it, which I applaud, so please carry on. Just have a bit of patience
with me.
Thanks,
Jon
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