Andy Dougherty wrote:
> I think the chaotic brainstorming on -language has been very necessary. We
> need a forum that encourages new radical ideas. Sure, most of them
> probably won't pan out or prove worthwhile, but I'm hopeful that there
> will ultimately be a few new things in perl6 that grew out of this process
> that a small team of core developers might never even have imagined.
Hope springs eternal, I suppose.
> Still, I certainly agree it's overwhelming, and I'm currently unsubscribed
> because I just can't keep up.
Right, which is *exactly* my point - many of the clued-up people can't
be bothered or don't have the time to follow the lists, which means that
most of the half-assed ideas that are kicked up into the air aren't
promptly kicked into touch, but end up as RFCs. That then results in
the current RFC mountain that *someone* is going to have to crawl
through.
> > lot of people will inevitably be disappointed when their enthusiastic
> > contributions are discarded, and I have seen absolutely no discussion of
> > the process by which RFCs will be accepted or rejected (and saying
> > 'Larry will do it' isn't good enough).
>
> There has been a bit of this, actually, but it's generally been "lost in
> the hubbub" :-). In my opinion, there's little point in developing a
> formal procedure when many (most?0 of the RFCs won't need one (the
> acceptance or rejection will be pretty obvious to everyone anyway) and
> when the truly difficult-to-handle-ones will be difficult-to-handle no
> matter how carefully you specify the handling procedure.
They might be obvious to you or someone of your level of experience, but
they obviously aren't 'obviously wrong' to the people who drew them up
in the first place, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered submitting
them. Don't make the mistake of assuming that everyone is as sensible
as you are.
> > The most difficult part of this process is sorting out the human
> > issues, not the technical issues, but that is the very area that seems
> > to have received least discussion.
>
> I think, in part, that's because we're not quite at the point where we
> have to face this head-on yet. But we're getting close, and I certainly
> agree that the human issues will indeed be a very big hurdle, probably the
> biggest hurdle facing the entire project.
Wrong, it should have been the first thing that was done. If it had,
the current mess wouldn't have happened.
--
Alan Burlison
"An optimist is a guy
that has never had
much experience."
-- Don Marquis --
