On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 7:29 PM, Taylor Swift <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 7:54 PM, Xiaodi Wu <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 6:29 PM, Taylor Swift <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> See, my problem with statements like this one, is that the answer >>> “should be supported as a third-party library” can also be interpreted as >>> “not my problem, go figure it out yourselves”. The idea that central entity >>> can only pay attention to what they want to, and the Community™ will >>> magically take care of the rest is one of the most pervasive, and untrue, >>> myths about open source. What’s worse, is that Swift has the benefit of >>> hindsight, in the form of many, many examples of languages that came before >>> and fell victim to this fallacy, and now have 15 competing “private” >>> classes for basic mathematical objects like *vectors*. >>> >>> I agree that a core math library, for example, *could* in theory be >>> supported as a third-party library. >>> >> >> The core team has said that they're open to a core math library being >> part of the Swift open source project; they just outlined that the >> _process_ for doing so is best initiated with a third-party library as a >> starting point. >> >> >>> But this will never happen on its own, for reasons that I will reiterate >>> here: >>> >>> - no one influential enough has bothered to jump start any such project >>> >> >> Karoly Lorentey has a wonderful, and quite mature, BigInt project: < >> https://github.com/lorentey/BigInt>. Also, as I mentioned, I just >> started a project for protocol-based additions to Swift's basic numeric >> types. These are just two examples. >> >> >>> - there are no avenues to encourage members of the community to come >>> together and organize a project (look how this thread got derailed!) >>> >> >> You're welcome to join me in my endeavor to create a math library. I'd >> bet Karoly feels the same way about his project. >> > > You don’t know how happy reading that sentence just made me, i’d assumed > no one was willing to team up to build such a thing. In which case, it’s a > good idea to start an incubator organization on Github. I think David > Turnbull tried doing that 2 years ago, I’ll reach out to him if he wants to > be a part of something like this. > > We should also maintain an index of promising pure swift libraries so they > are discoverable (like docs.rs does for Rust). > I believe there has been mention on this list that the core team would like to revisit this idea at some point. > >> >>> - there is no “soft” infrastructure in place to support such >>> collaboration (look at the fuss over discourse and mailing list spam!) >>> >> >> The GitHub environment has excellent tools to support such collaboration, >> IMO. For example: >> >> Based on my experience implementing a library, I wrote a Gist to outline >> some lessons learned and suggestions for improvement. Not only did the >> document find an audience, these suggestions were in turn used to inform >> core team-driven revisions to the integer protocols. As a result of these >> revisions, it became possible to implement some initializers that could be >> useful for people writing generic numeric algorithms. Recently, I submitted >> a PR to the Swift project on GitHub to implement these initializers. Now, >> everyone will be able to use them. Collaboration, positive feedback loop, >> win-win for all involved. >> >> Likewise, Karoly used his experience updating BigInt for Swift 4 to >> inform certain improvements to the integer protocols. He implemented these >> improvements in a series of PRs. Now, as a result of these developments, >> Karoly's library will be better designed *and* everyone else will benefit >> from a better implementation of the integer protocols. Again, >> collaboration, positive feedback loop, win-win for all involved. >> > > Great!! can you link me to the gist? > https://gist.github.com/xwu/d68baefaae9e9291d2e65bd12ad51be2 >> - there are no positive feedback loops whereby a promising project can >>> gain market share and mature >>> - because there is no organization backing these projects, potential >>> users are reluctant to depend on these libraries, since they will logically >>> bet that the library is more likely to fall out of maintenance than reach >>> maturity. >>> >> >> Addressing this point is clearly impossible. When Apple wishes to commit >> its own resources to the maintenance of a Swift math library, >> swift-corelibs-math will appear on GitHub. Suggestions such as opening an >> empty repo and letting people contribute to it would either give the >> illusion of organizational backing that doesn't exist or would in fact >> commit Apple to support a repo that it doesn't wish to support. I fail to >> see why the former is good for anybody; in fact, it's strictly inferior to >> the same repo honestly representing itself as a third-party effort. And >> asking for the latter is essentially asking Apple to create a Swift math >> library--which, again, is not in the cards. >> > > My point wasn’t really to exhort Apple to create a Swift math library, > just that people are more willing to depend on a library if the library’s > bus factor is greater than 1. A lot of great Swift packages in one one guy > or girl’s github repository who later disappeared. Turnbull’s SGLOpenGL > library is a good example of this; his library no longer compiles which > motivated me to write swift-opengl > <https://github.com/kelvin13/swift-opengl>. Then again, I’m sure people > feel the same way about depending on swift-opengl today as I felt about > depending on SGLOpenGL. > > There just has so be some semblance of organization. That organization > doesn’t have to come from Apple or the swift core team. A community > initiative with sufficient momentum would be just as good. (The problem of > course is that it is rare for a community initiative to arise.) > Well, hang on now. There are plenty of products put out by even major organizations that are unceremoniously and abruptly cut. There are plenty of projects worked on by one or a few major people that are long-lived. Projects that have longevity have some sort of financially sensible model for their continued existence. Three, thirty, or even 300 unpaid people working on an open-source project won't make it much more reliable (in the eyes of others) than one unpaid person, and again I disagree that the veneer of an organization is superior to presenting the status of the project honestly. (Example--what is commonly thought to be a bigger threat to Firefox's continued health: the possibility that there will be a shortfall in unpaid contributors, or the possibility that there will be a shortfall in funding?) Rounding up all the goodwill on this list will not do you any good if your goal is to convince users that a certain project will be maintained into the future--because it won't rustle up a single dime. Whether or not you explicitly equate these in your mind, "backing" == money, and if you want this point addressed, you're claiming that someone somewhere should be spending money on a Swift math library. I'm personally committed to making sure that my code will work for the foreseeable future, but I fully accept that there's simply no way for me to convince a sufficient number of people of this fact without a credible showing of funding. In that sense, a community initiative with "momentum" is decidedly not going to be a just-as-good alternative to a core library.
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