On Sat, 2 Dec 2000, Nathan Torkington wrote:
> * it's difficult for the design to happen through the questions
Is that really true? Have we tried? As far as I can tell we've got a
lot of well-intentioned people that for whatever reason are spending very
little time making Perl 6 happen.
Let me explain why I think this is a useful comment instead of just
slander from the sidelines. I'm somone who's reasonably knowledgeable
about compiler technology and about Perl internals. Still, I'm not so
expert that I feel comfortable leading the design of the Perl 6 internals.
I'd hoped to be involved as a skilled helper - able to develop and
debug proposed systems. The problem is that I can't be of much use until
the people that really are qualified to design this stuff start producing
designs.
So, here's my opinion: we have enough structure. All the people are here
that are going to show up. Now it's time to do the work and that means
the experts have got to dedicate some serious time to sketching out the
skeleton of this beast. Once you've done that then I think you'll find
there are more people around to add the needed muscles, skin and brains.
If you need to go off in a room alone to that, well, I guess that's your
option. I just don't think you've actually given the existing structure
much of a trial yet.
-sam
>
> How about we do this to design the architecture and API:
>
> perl6-internals-design is for a team of no more than 10 people. These
> people should have experience either with perl5 or with a similar
> system. Mail to this list goes to perl6-internals-design and to
> perl6-internals.
>
> perl6-internals is a public access list, where folks can feel free to
> question and kibitz. The design team will probably want to have a few
> people on the public list as well. This is where the consciousness of
> the rest of us can be raised. We can see what they're doing, ask
> questions, and make suggestions. Because the meta discussion happens
> off the -design list, designers will be able to tune it out if they
> have to focus on the task at hand.
>
> This lets us satisfy these goals:
> * open process, both for visible and participation
> * small team doing the design (elephant is a mouse designed by
> committee, etc)
>
> Make sense?
>
> Nat
>
