On Tue, Jan 21, 2003 at 02:21:58PM -0800, Austin Hastings wrote: > > --- David Storrs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > This is something along the lines of the applied research vs basic > > research question. What Larry is doing pretty much amounts to basic > > research that will help all of these other projects in the long run. > > Sure. But managing the funding budget isn't a business, where basic > research will enable more income. It's the allocation of scarce I'm not convinced that that is correct. Basic research may enable more income. If it works. But at least 90% of basic research won't. Hence you have to do a lot of it, but the odd time you get it right, it can be very lucrative > resources. And from that viewpoint, Larry and P6 is an iceberg, just > cruising along hoping to gash a massive hole in the support/maintenance > schedule, because once P6 rolls all the other stuff has to be sorted, > ported, and supported. I'm not quite following you - this looks like an argument against P6, because its appearance will create a lot more work? > If I was in charge of the TPF funding budget, I'd be yearning to pick > up the phone whenever I saw an episode of "The Sopranos"(*)... And this I don't follow at all, having never seen The Sopranos. So I'm probably completely failing to address the points you are making The problem I see with not funding Larry, is that if as a consequence Larry has to get a job that prevents him from working on Perl 6, Perl 6 won't happen until he retires. Anyone can implement Perl 6 (although I reckon we'd have a setback of many months on parrot if Dan stopped and left, and more if other people dropped out as a result. But it can be picked up by anyone capable). Not just anyone can design Perl 6. The obvious counter argument is that if Perl 6 stops, Perl 5 as is won't go away; Perl 5 is what we have; Perl 5 is what we are using, and Perl 5 is good enough. However eventually everyone volunteering to work on it will drift away. At which point it is stagnant, and no bugs get fixed. For some reason, Perl 6 actually brought a lot of new blood and new momentum to Perl 5. I suspect Perl 5.8 would not have happened, or at least not have happened yet, had Perl 6 not been around. Perl 6 may seem crazy, far fetched and long term. Yet it is bringing morale to Perl 5, suggesting that Perl does have a future, and that maybe Perl 5 is worth working on. If Perl 5 doesn't feel worth working on, then most will go away. I've been involved in development communities before where the future has been pulled out from under our feet. The community dissipates - there is more fun to be had elsewhere. You may think that volunteers on Perl 5 are not important. You may not be using Perl 5.8, and you may see no need to. Ever. But if you're using 5.004, 5.005_03 or 5.6.1, and you have hit a bug in it, how are you going to get it fixed? Currently bugs discovered in 5.8 are actively being fixed (or at least ought to be - nag p5p if they aren't). But a release of 5.6.2 looks unlikely, and 5.005_04 equally improbable. How would you feel if there was never going to be a 5.8.1 either? Would it affect your technology choice? Would it affect your clients'/employers'? Hence I would argue that if Perl 6 halts, Perl 5 stops looking credible long term. Which I don't want to happen. Currently this argument is shaky, because to an external observer, Larry with funding unable to produce apocolypses due to other reasons is indistinguishable from Larry unable to produce apocolypses due to lack of funding. Except that there is visibly less money for anything else worthy. Nicholas Clark
