On Sat, Aug 05, 2000 at 01:26:53AM +0900, Simon Cozens wrote:
>On Fri, Aug 04, 2000 at 09:05:38AM -0700, Nathan Wiger wrote:
>> Suggestion: Can we manually renumber this "RFC 0"? This should be the
>> first one at the top of the list, not buried somewhere within. my($.02).
>
>We *shouldn't* need to spell this out for people.
>It really, really terrifies me that we do.
I think a great number of Perl users think that the thrust of this RFC
is as obvious as "air should remain breathable" or "the laws of gravity
should continue to function".
However, most RFCs we've seen so far on -language are suggesting changes
to the language. Some of those changes are quite radical. That's the
nature of this discussion -- people throw ideas into the arena, and we
discuss them or flame them or laud them, as appropriate. Mostly we
hypothesize wildly, brainstorm, and generally let our imaginations run
free. That's what this stage of the development process is about.
The *next* stage is best described as "triage". This is a word I only
learnt recently, but it's *such* a useful one in software design.
Triage is the process by which requirements or suggestions are
eliminated on the basis of them being too hard, or not important enough.
A triage nurse in ER is the person who decides who's worth operating on,
and who's either dead already, or not really badly injured. That shoudl
give you some idea ;)
Larry will be doing some of the triage, but I think it's a good idea
that we pre-filter as much as possible. If a brainstormed idea turns
out to suck hard, I think we're all adult enough to admit to that and
throw it out. Brainstorming's one of those "no ego" times, when the
normal rules of embarrassment and glory don't apply. If you don't grok
that, you either need to get up to speed or avoid the brainstorming
process.
Nevertheless, an RFC like Simon's is valuable, because when we come to
triage time it will help us remember what this is all about, and give us
the necessary context to decide what is "too hard" and what is "not
important enough".
For a triage nurse, the goal is to keep as many ER patients as possible
alive and well. For us, the goal is to make Perl 6 the best Perl yet.
The best *Perl*.
As they say in the classics: if you want (Python|Java|Lisp) you know
where to find it :)
K.
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