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digitalmars.D - The Cathedral and the Bazaar

reply "Matthew" <admin stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> writes:
Been reading the book - the article itself is available here 
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ - 
and thinking about how this pertains to D.

I am wondering whether we might be able to make the cathedral - the D 
language - smaller, and the bazaar much larger. It'd need Walter to 
become more like Linux Torvalds and less like, erm, Walter.

I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who might be motivated 
to read the whole article as to whether they think this might be 
applicable to D. (Imagine releasing several def's of the language in a 
single day!)

Cheers

Matthew
Mar 03 2005
next sibling parent reply "Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> writes:
"Matthew" <admin stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> wrote in message 
news:d085be$2j8v$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 Been reading the book - the article itself is available here 
 http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ - and 
 thinking about how this pertains to D.

 I am wondering whether we might be able to make the cathedral - the D 
 language - smaller, and the bazaar much larger. It'd need Walter to become 
 more like Linux Torvalds and less like, erm, Walter.

 I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who might be motivated to 
 read the whole article as to whether they think this might be applicable 
 to D. (Imagine releasing several def's of the language in a single day!)


I have not read the entire article, but I'm familiar with the premise 
(delegated community development) and much of the subject (Linux and related 
tools).

I'm not so sure the 'D community' is not operating in the best way wrt 
developing a new language. Many of the other efforts such as Perl, Oberon, 
Eiffel, OCaml, PHP started the same way.. Basically one man with the vision 
joined by others with simliar interests who contribute when they can (and 
often with some 3rd party funding involved - which I don't think D has. 
Eiffel and OCaml for example are still supported by INRIA). Plus, there is a 
big difference not working in D's favor - the scope of the D language seems 
to be a lot larger than for the inital releases of any of the above 
languages and D is trying to take on the 3 most popular development 
languages out there whereas perl for example still is 'just' a scripting 
language that excels in some areas, but not in a way that a true GP language 
like D has to.


believe. It started out as the vision of one man and AFAIK is still 
primarily developed by a pretty small team of core developers. And basically 
they work on the runtime system and libraries, and didn't have to come up 
with a brand-new language spec., or for that matter, even specs. for most of 
the library functionality. And it's taken them 3 years to 'just' get v1.0 
shipped even though they have had much more dedicated support (than D has) 
for that project since its inception. The way the Mono dev. effort has 
evolved, most of the 'community development' done outside of the core team 
has to do with relatively minor - in the whole scope of Mono -development of 
some library functionality and feedback.

Much of that is practiced already by the 'D community' (library development 
and feedback).

No doubt, there are areas that Walter keeps strict control over - just like 
Mr. Torvald kept strict control/did most of the development of the IP stack 
for Linux for a long while - but I think that primarily those areas that 
Walter keeps strict control over /need/ strict control, such as what goes in 
and stays out of the language spec. He's opened up much else.. We're free to 
contribute and I have not seen any resistence by Walter to include additions 
and changes to the library if they make even a little sense, are reasonably 
stable and don't break something else. In addition, he's released enough of 
the compiler source code to already support the development of a seperate 
compiler by primarily one person (David Friedman), and the entire library is 
open-sourced as well.

The other big difference between something like Linux and D is that Linux 
(being based on UNIX of course) was already "spec'ed" to a large degree and 
also the whole design of a UNIX type op. sys. is based on disjointed 
utilities, which lends itself much better to delegated community development 
than something more tightly coupled like a programming language spec. has to 
be.

In short, I don't get where your heading with this - how they heck could 
Walter follow the 'bazaar' model any better than he already has, short of 
releasing the DMD compiler back-end as well (which, basically, Walter has 
donated to this project to speed it along and doing so probably wouldn't 
speed the development of D anyhow).

- Dave


 Cheers

 Matthew
Mar 03 2005
parent reply "Matthew" <admin stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> writes:
"Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> wrote in message 
news:d08bou$2pf8$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 "Matthew" <admin stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> wrote in message 
 news:d085be$2j8v$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 Been reading the book - the article itself is available here 
 http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/  
 - and thinking about how this pertains to D.

 I am wondering whether we might be able to make the cathedral - the D 
 language - smaller, and the bazaar much larger. It'd need Walter to 
 become more like Linux Torvalds and less like, erm, Walter.

 I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who might be 
 motivated to read the whole article as to whether they think this 
 might be applicable to D. (Imagine releasing several def's of the 
 language in a single day!)


 I have not read the entire article, but I'm familiar with the premise 
 (delegated community development) and much of the subject (Linux and 
 related tools).

 I'm not so sure the 'D community' is not operating in the best way wrt 
 developing a new language. Many of the other efforts such as Perl, 
 Oberon, Eiffel, OCaml, PHP started the same way.. Basically one man 
 with the vision joined by others with simliar interests who contribute 
 when they can (and often with some 3rd party funding involved - which 
 I don't think D has. Eiffel and OCaml for example are still supported 
 by INRIA). Plus, there is a big difference not working in D's favor - 
 the scope of the D language seems to be a lot larger than for the 
 inital releases of any of the above languages and D is trying to take 
 on the 3 most popular development languages out there whereas perl for 
 example still is 'just' a scripting language that excels in some 
 areas, but not in a way that a true GP language like D has to.


 believe. It started out as the vision of one man and AFAIK is still 
 primarily developed by a pretty small team of core developers. And 
 basically they work on the runtime system and libraries, and didn't 
 have to come up with a brand-new language spec., or for that matter, 
 even specs. for most of the library functionality. And it's taken them 
 3 years to 'just' get v1.0 shipped even though they have had much more 
 dedicated support (than D has) for that project since its inception. 
 The way the Mono dev. effort has evolved, most of the 'community 
 development' done outside of the core team has to do with relatively 
 minor - in the whole scope of Mono -development of some library 
 functionality and feedback.

 Much of that is practiced already by the 'D community' (library 
 development and feedback).

 No doubt, there are areas that Walter keeps strict control over - just 
 like Mr. Torvald kept strict control/did most of the development of 
 the IP stack for Linux for a long while - but I think that primarily 
 those areas that Walter keeps strict control over /need/ strict 
 control, such as what goes in and stays out of the language spec. He's 
 opened up much else.. We're free to contribute and I have not seen any 
 resistence by Walter to include additions and changes to the library 
 if they make even a little sense, are reasonably stable and don't 
 break something else. In addition, he's released enough of the 
 compiler source code to already support the development of a seperate 
 compiler by primarily one person (David Friedman), and the entire 
 library is open-sourced as well.

 The other big difference between something like Linux and D is that 
 Linux (being based on UNIX of course) was already "spec'ed" to a large 
 degree and also the whole design of a UNIX type op. sys. is based on 
 disjointed utilities, which lends itself much better to delegated 
 community development than something more tightly coupled like a 
 programming language spec. has to be.

 In short, I don't get where your heading with this - how they heck 
 could Walter follow the 'bazaar' model any better than he already has, 
 short of releasing the DMD compiler back-end as well (which, 
 basically, Walter has donated to this project to speed it along and 
 doing so probably wouldn't speed the development of D anyhow).


Was just throwing it out for discussion more than anything. ;)
Mar 03 2005
next sibling parent reply "Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> writes:
"Matthew" <admin stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> wrote in message 
news:d08dkt$2r03$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 "Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> wrote in message 
 news:d08bou$2pf8$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 "Matthew" <admin stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> wrote in message 
 news:d085be$2j8v$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 Been reading the book - the article itself is available here 
 http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/  - 
 and thinking about how this pertains to D.

 I am wondering whether we might be able to make the cathedral - the D 
 language - smaller, and the bazaar much larger. It'd need Walter to 
 become more like Linux Torvalds and less like, erm, Walter.

 I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who might be motivated 
 to read the whole article as to whether they think this might be 
 applicable to D. (Imagine releasing several def's of the language in a 
 single day!)


 I have not read the entire article, but I'm familiar with the premise 
 (delegated community development) and much of the subject (Linux and 
 related tools).

 I'm not so sure the 'D community' is not operating in the best way wrt 
 developing a new language. Many of the other efforts such as Perl, 
 Oberon, Eiffel, OCaml, PHP started the same way.. Basically one man with 
 the vision joined by others with simliar interests who contribute when 
 they can (and often with some 3rd party funding involved - which I don't 
 think D has. Eiffel and OCaml for example are still supported by INRIA). 
 Plus, there is a big difference not working in D's favor - the scope of 
 the D language seems to be a lot larger than for the inital releases of 
 any of the above languages and D is trying to take on the 3 most popular 
 development languages out there whereas perl for example still is 'just' 
 a scripting language that excels in some areas, but not in a way that a 
 true GP language like D has to.


 believe. It started out as the vision of one man and AFAIK is still 
 primarily developed by a pretty small team of core developers. And 
 basically they work on the runtime system and libraries, and didn't have 
 to come up with a brand-new language spec., or for that matter, even 
 specs. for most of the library functionality. And it's taken them 3 years 
 to 'just' get v1.0 shipped even though they have had much more dedicated 
 support (than D has) for that project since its inception. The way the 
 Mono dev. effort has evolved, most of the 'community development' done 
 outside of the core team has to do with relatively minor - in the whole 
 scope of Mono -development of some library functionality and feedback.

 Much of that is practiced already by the 'D community' (library 
 development and feedback).

 No doubt, there are areas that Walter keeps strict control over - just 
 like Mr. Torvald kept strict control/did most of the development of the 
 IP stack for Linux for a long while - but I think that primarily those 
 areas that Walter keeps strict control over /need/ strict control, such 
 as what goes in and stays out of the language spec. He's opened up much 
 else.. We're free to contribute and I have not seen any resistence by 
 Walter to include additions and changes to the library if they make even 
 a little sense, are reasonably stable and don't break something else. In 
 addition, he's released enough of the compiler source code to already 
 support the development of a seperate compiler by primarily one person 
 (David Friedman), and the entire library is open-sourced as well.

 The other big difference between something like Linux and D is that Linux 
 (being based on UNIX of course) was already "spec'ed" to a large degree 
 and also the whole design of a UNIX type op. sys. is based on disjointed 
 utilities, which lends itself much better to delegated community 
 development than something more tightly coupled like a programming 
 language spec. has to be.

 In short, I don't get where your heading with this - how they heck could 
 Walter follow the 'bazaar' model any better than he already has, short of 
 releasing the DMD compiler back-end as well (which, basically, Walter has 
 donated to this project to speed it along and doing so probably wouldn't 
 speed the development of D anyhow).


 Was just throwing it out for discussion more than anything. ;)


Sorry - got carried away a little there.. I'll shutup now <g>
Mar 03 2005
next sibling parent clayasaurus <clayasaurus gmail.com> writes:
Dave wrote:

 "Matthew" <admin stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> wrote in message 
 news:d08dkt$2r03$1 digitaldaemon.com...
 

"Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> wrote in message 
news:d08bou$2pf8$1 digitaldaemon.com...


"Matthew" <admin stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> wrote in message 
news:d085be$2j8v$1 digitaldaemon.com...


Been reading the book - the article itself is available here 
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/  - 
and thinking about how this pertains to D.

I am wondering whether we might be able to make the cathedral - the D 
language - smaller, and the bazaar much larger. It'd need Walter to 
become more like Linux Torvalds and less like, erm, Walter.

I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who might be motivated 
to read the whole article as to whether they think this might be 
applicable to D. (Imagine releasing several def's of the language in a 
single day!)


I have not read the entire article, but I'm familiar with the premise 
(delegated community development) and much of the subject (Linux and 
related tools).

I'm not so sure the 'D community' is not operating in the best way wrt 
developing a new language. Many of the other efforts such as Perl, 
Oberon, Eiffel, OCaml, PHP started the same way.. Basically one man with 
the vision joined by others with simliar interests who contribute when 
they can (and often with some 3rd party funding involved - which I don't 
think D has. Eiffel and OCaml for example are still supported by INRIA). 
Plus, there is a big difference not working in D's favor - the scope of 
the D language seems to be a lot larger than for the inital releases of 
any of the above languages and D is trying to take on the 3 most popular 
development languages out there whereas perl for example still is 'just' 
a scripting language that excels in some areas, but not in a way that a 
true GP language like D has to.


believe. It started out as the vision of one man and AFAIK is still 
primarily developed by a pretty small team of core developers. And 
basically they work on the runtime system and libraries, and didn't have 
to come up with a brand-new language spec., or for that matter, even 
specs. for most of the library functionality. And it's taken them 3 years 
to 'just' get v1.0 shipped even though they have had much more dedicated 
support (than D has) for that project since its inception. The way the 
Mono dev. effort has evolved, most of the 'community development' done 
outside of the core team has to do with relatively minor - in the whole 
scope of Mono -development of some library functionality and feedback.

Much of that is practiced already by the 'D community' (library 
development and feedback).

No doubt, there are areas that Walter keeps strict control over - just 
like Mr. Torvald kept strict control/did most of the development of the 
IP stack for Linux for a long while - but I think that primarily those 
areas that Walter keeps strict control over /need/ strict control, such 
as what goes in and stays out of the language spec. He's opened up much 
else.. We're free to contribute and I have not seen any resistence by 
Walter to include additions and changes to the library if they make even 
a little sense, are reasonably stable and don't break something else. In 
addition, he's released enough of the compiler source code to already 
support the development of a seperate compiler by primarily one person 
(David Friedman), and the entire library is open-sourced as well.

The other big difference between something like Linux and D is that Linux 
(being based on UNIX of course) was already "spec'ed" to a large degree 
and also the whole design of a UNIX type op. sys. is based on disjointed 
utilities, which lends itself much better to delegated community 
development than something more tightly coupled like a programming 
language spec. has to be.

In short, I don't get where your heading with this - how they heck could 
Walter follow the 'bazaar' model any better than he already has, short of 
releasing the DMD compiler back-end as well (which, basically, Walter has 
donated to this project to speed it along and doing so probably wouldn't 
speed the development of D anyhow).


Was just throwing it out for discussion more than anything. ;)


 
 
 Sorry - got carried away a little there.. I'll shutup now <g>
 
 


Oh, come on! (daily show). You contributed more words to the discussion 
than anyone else, speak freely!! ;-)
Mar 03 2005
prev sibling parent "Matthew" <admin stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> writes:
"Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> wrote in message 
news:d08lvm$17u$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 "Matthew" <admin stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> wrote in message 
 news:d08dkt$2r03$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 "Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> wrote in message 
 news:d08bou$2pf8$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 "Matthew" <admin stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> wrote in message 
 news:d085be$2j8v$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 Been reading the book - the article itself is available here 
 http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/   
 - and thinking about how this pertains to D.

 I am wondering whether we might be able to make the cathedral - the 
 D language - smaller, and the bazaar much larger. It'd need Walter 
 to become more like Linux Torvalds and less like, erm, Walter.

 I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who might be 
 motivated to read the whole article as to whether they think this 
 might be applicable to D. (Imagine releasing several def's of the 
 language in a single day!)


 I have not read the entire article, but I'm familiar with the 
 premise (delegated community development) and much of the subject 
 (Linux and related tools).

 I'm not so sure the 'D community' is not operating in the best way 
 wrt developing a new language. Many of the other efforts such as 
 Perl, Oberon, Eiffel, OCaml, PHP started the same way.. Basically 
 one man with the vision joined by others with simliar interests who 
 contribute when they can (and often with some 3rd party funding 
 involved - which I don't think D has. Eiffel and OCaml for example 
 are still supported by INRIA). Plus, there is a big difference not 
 working in D's favor - the scope of the D language seems to be a lot 
 larger than for the inital releases of any of the above languages 
 and D is trying to take on the 3 most popular development languages 
 out there whereas perl for example still is 'just' a scripting 
 language that excels in some areas, but not in a way that a true GP 
 language like D has to.


 believe. It started out as the vision of one man and AFAIK is still 
 primarily developed by a pretty small team of core developers. And 
 basically they work on the runtime system and libraries, and didn't 
 have to come up with a brand-new language spec., or for that matter, 
 even specs. for most of the library functionality. And it's taken 
 them 3 years to 'just' get v1.0 shipped even though they have had 
 much more dedicated support (than D has) for that project since its 
 inception. The way the Mono dev. effort has evolved, most of the 
 'community development' done outside of the core team has to do with 
 relatively minor - in the whole scope of Mono -development of some 
 library functionality and feedback.

 Much of that is practiced already by the 'D community' (library 
 development and feedback).

 No doubt, there are areas that Walter keeps strict control over - 
 just like Mr. Torvald kept strict control/did most of the 
 development of the IP stack for Linux for a long while - but I think 
 that primarily those areas that Walter keeps strict control over 
 /need/ strict control, such as what goes in and stays out of the 
 language spec. He's opened up much else.. We're free to contribute 
 and I have not seen any resistence by Walter to include additions 
 and changes to the library if they make even a little sense, are 
 reasonably stable and don't break something else. In addition, he's 
 released enough of the compiler source code to already support the 
 development of a seperate compiler by primarily one person (David 
 Friedman), and the entire library is open-sourced as well.

 The other big difference between something like Linux and D is that 
 Linux (being based on UNIX of course) was already "spec'ed" to a 
 large degree and also the whole design of a UNIX type op. sys. is 
 based on disjointed utilities, which lends itself much better to 
 delegated community development than something more tightly coupled 
 like a programming language spec. has to be.

 In short, I don't get where your heading with this - how they heck 
 could Walter follow the 'bazaar' model any better than he already 
 has, short of releasing the DMD compiler back-end as well (which, 
 basically, Walter has donated to this project to speed it along and 
 doing so probably wouldn't speed the development of D anyhow).


 Was just throwing it out for discussion more than anything. ;)


 Sorry - got carried away a little there.. I'll shutup now <g>


Don't apologise. It was great. Very informative. (Made me glad I'd sown 
that particular seed.)
Mar 03 2005
prev sibling parent Georg Wrede <georg.wrede nospam.org> writes:
Matthew wrote:

 "Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> wrote in message 

In short, I don't get where your heading with this - how they heck 
could Walter follow the 'bazaar' model any better than he already has, 
short of releasing the DMD compiler back-end as well (which, 
basically, Walter has donated to this project to speed it along and 
doing so probably wouldn't speed the development of D anyhow).


 
 
 Was just throwing it out for discussion more than anything. ;)


We really do need a new newsgroup.
Mar 05 2005
prev sibling next sibling parent "Carlos Santander B." <csantander619 gmail.com> writes:
Matthew wrote:

 Been reading the book - the article itself is available here 
 http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ - 
 and thinking about how this pertains to D.
 
 I am wondering whether we might be able to make the cathedral - the D 
 language - smaller, and the bazaar much larger. It'd need Walter to 
 become more like Linux Torvalds and less like, erm, Walter.
 
 I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who might be motivated 
 to read the whole article as to whether they think this might be 
 applicable to D. (Imagine releasing several def's of the language in a 
 single day!)
 
 Cheers
 
 Matthew
 
 
 


Thanks for that. I particularly liked the part where he said about where 
human beings find pleasure for doing things: in an optimal challenge 
situation: not to easy to be boring, not too difficult to be impossible. 
For me, it was one of those things that you already know, but you just 
haven't found a way to put in words.

Regarding D, I don't think Walter is too cathedral-like. I doubt DMD 
will ever be a bazaar, but I think it's ok. Could be better? Yes, but as 
of now, it works. IMHO.

_______________________
Carlos Santander Bernal
Mar 03 2005
prev sibling next sibling parent clayasaurus <clayasaurus gmail.com> writes:
Some day, D will grow to a point where there are more than one (or two) 
compiler implementations. When that starts to happen, the I guess it'll 
have to be more a bazzar, from competing compiler implementations?

Matthew wrote:

 Been reading the book - the article itself is available here 
 http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ - 
 and thinking about how this pertains to D.
 
 I am wondering whether we might be able to make the cathedral - the D 
 language - smaller, and the bazaar much larger. It'd need Walter to 
 become more like Linux Torvalds and less like, erm, Walter.
 
 I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who might be motivated 
 to read the whole article as to whether they think this might be 
 applicable to D. (Imagine releasing several def's of the language in a 
 single day!)
 
 Cheers
 
 Matthew
Mar 03 2005
prev sibling parent reply Georg Wrede <georg.wrede nospam.org> writes:
Matthew wrote:

 Been reading the book - the article itself is available here 
 http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ - 
 and thinking about how this pertains to D.
 
 I am wondering whether we might be able to make the cathedral - the D 
 language - smaller, and the bazaar much larger. It'd need Walter to 
 become more like Linux Torvalds and less like, erm, Walter.
 
 I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who might be motivated 
 to read the whole article as to whether they think this might be 
 applicable to D. (Imagine releasing several def's of the language in a 
 single day!)


I've been thinking for some time on a practical issue, only somewhat 
related to this.

Currently we have the DMD compiler, and that's it.

What we'd need, IMHO, is another track, with a version of the compiler 
that is only meant for testing the candidate ideas. To make this 
absolutely clear, the "toy" compiler would have to have a very distinct 
name. (Think about proto, test, toying, or "tasting a feature", etc.)

Technically, it would be DMD, no biggie. Slapping on, and off, new 
features would be somewhat easier on Walter, since the whole idea is to 
stay pre-pre-alpha with those features.

Actually, if slapping on an interesting feature would require too much 
work (technically) to cooperate quick-and-dirty with some official 
feature, then that would just be disabled for that build.

Then we'd see posts by Walter:

"""
Hi, I just made a regexps-in-language version, but disabled wchar and 
dchar in it. Check it out, is this feature so cool we'd consider doing 
it for real?

Oh, and last week I made another, that supports dscript (not to be 
confused with DMDscript). But it's broken, I disabled all compiler 
switches, but it still chokes on shebangs, just so you know.

The former is called Burn-0-115-1-regex.zip and the latter 
Burn-0-115-1-dscript.zip. There is just the compiler, and regex.zip has 
a modified Phobos in the package. As normal, slap them in dmd/bin of 
0.115 release. That's all to get up and trying them.

Next week I'm trying the 2+ dimensional dynamic arrays, but to save 
time, I'll implement only 1 and 2 dimensions. If the response is good 
then I'll try to first figure the general solution, and then, maybe next 
month do a Burn version.
"""

The Burn :-) releases would have a non-silencable start-up text, in the 
spirit of:

This is a feature test bed. DO NOT use this for ANYTHING. Does not come 
with ANY documentation. THIS VERSION HAS BUGS, is incomplete, and we
know it. Do not use. For a FREE, QUALTY compiler, see

                  www.digitalmars.com

      *** burn-0-115-1-regex.exe, 200503150830, build 4812 ***

---------

So the Burn series DBURN???.EXE progs would be totally throwaway. And 
the Linux dburn??? binaries.



Why? What's the point?

Today, Walter has to really think things through beforehand. And do them 
PROPERLY in the compiler. All this slows down progress.
Mar 05 2005
parent reply "Matthew" <admin.hat stlsoft.dot.org> writes:
"Georg Wrede" <georg.wrede nospam.org> wrote in message
news:422A08F7.4020807 nospam.org...

 Matthew wrote:

 Been reading the book - the article itself is available here 
 http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ - and
thinking about how this pertains to D.

 I am wondering whether we might be able to make the cathedral - the D language
- smaller, and the bazaar much larger. 
 It'd need Walter to become more like Linux Torvalds and less like, erm, Walter.

 I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who might be motivated to
read the whole article as to whether they 
 think this might be applicable to D. (Imagine releasing several def's of the
language in a single day!)


 I've been thinking for some time on a practical issue, only somewhat related
to this.

 Currently we have the DMD compiler, and that's it.

 What we'd need, IMHO, is another track, with a version of the compiler that is
only meant for testing the candidate 
 ideas. To make this absolutely clear, the "toy" compiler would have to have a
very distinct name. (Think about proto, 
 test, toying, or "tasting a feature", etc.)

 Technically, it would be DMD, no biggie. Slapping on, and off, new features
would be somewhat easier on Walter, since 
 the whole idea is to stay pre-pre-alpha with those features.

 Actually, if slapping on an interesting feature would require too much work
(technically) to cooperate quick-and-dirty 
 with some official feature, then that would just be disabled for that build.

 Then we'd see posts by Walter:

 """
 Hi, I just made a regexps-in-language version, but disabled wchar and dchar in
it. Check it out, is this feature so 
 cool we'd consider doing it for real?

 Oh, and last week I made another, that supports dscript (not to be confused
with DMDscript). But it's broken, I 
 disabled all compiler switches, but it still chokes on shebangs, just so you
know.

 The former is called Burn-0-115-1-regex.zip and the latter
Burn-0-115-1-dscript.zip. There is just the compiler, and 
 regex.zip has a modified Phobos in the package. As normal, slap them in
dmd/bin of 0.115 release. That's all to get up 
 and trying them.

 Next week I'm trying the 2+ dimensional dynamic arrays, but to save time, I'll
implement only 1 and 2 dimensions. If 
 the response is good then I'll try to first figure the general solution, and
then, maybe next month do a Burn version.
 """

 The Burn :-) releases would have a non-silencable start-up text, in the spirit
of:

 This is a feature test bed. DO NOT use this for ANYTHING. Does not come with
ANY documentation. THIS VERSION HAS BUGS, 
 is incomplete, and we
 know it. Do not use. For a FREE, QUALTY compiler, see

                  www.digitalmars.com

      *** burn-0-115-1-regex.exe, 200503150830, build 4812 ***

 ---------

 So the Burn series DBURN???.EXE progs would be totally throwaway. And the
Linux dburn??? binaries.



 Why? What's the point?

 Today, Walter has to really think things through beforehand. And do them
PROPERLY in the compiler. All this slows down 
 progress.


Nice idea. My concern is that there'd not be time for Walter to do it. If this
could be bazaar'd, maybe that'd succeed?
Mar 05 2005
parent Georg Wrede <georg.wrede nospam.org> writes:
Matthew wrote:

 "Georg Wrede" <georg.wrede nospam.org> wrote in message
news:422A08F7.4020807 nospam.org...
 

Matthew wrote:




...

Actually, if slapping on an interesting feature would require too much work
(technically) to cooperate quick-and-dirty 
with some official feature, then that would just be disabled for that build.

Then we'd see posts by Walter:

"""
Hi, I just made a regexps-in-language version, but disabled wchar and dchar in
it. Check it out, is this feature so 
cool we'd consider doing it for real?

Oh, and last week I made another, that supports dscript (not to be confused
with DMDscript). But it's broken, I 
disabled all compiler switches, but it still chokes on shebangs, just so you
know.

The former is called Burn-0-115-1-regex.zip and the latter
Burn-0-115-1-dscript.zip. There is just the compiler, and 
regex.zip has a modified Phobos in the package. As normal, slap them in dmd/bin
of 0.115 release. That's all to get up 
and trying them.

Next week I'm trying the 2+ dimensional dynamic arrays, but to save time, I'll
implement only 1 and 2 dimensions. If 
the response is good then I'll try to first figure the general solution, and
then, maybe next month do a Burn version.
"""

The Burn :-) releases would have a non-silencable start-up text, in the spirit
of:

This is a feature test bed. DO NOT use this for ANYTHING. Does not come with
ANY documentation. THIS VERSION HAS BUGS, 
is incomplete, and we
know it. Do not use. For a FREE, QUALTY compiler, see

                 www.digitalmars.com

     *** burn-0-115-1-regex.exe, 200503150830, build 4812 ***

---------

So the Burn series DBURN???.EXE progs would be totally throwaway. And the Linux
dburn??? binaries.



Why? What's the point?

Today, Walter has to really think things through beforehand. And do them
PROPERLY in the compiler. All this slows down 
progress.


 
 
 Nice idea. My concern is that there'd not be time for Walter to do it. If this
could be bazaar'd, maybe that'd succeed?


I always somehow thought that there'd be top level resistance
to Bazaar like things. But I had no reason, just felt like it.

There's such a lot of things that could be split and given
to interested crowds. "Somebody wanna look at the indexing
issue, and then we have this foo thing, that really could
use some thinking and proposals."

I remember Linus quite early started using more time reading
and commenting suggested kernel things, than actually writing
code himself. And the rest is history.
Mar 07 2005