Re: [Gnu-arch-users] arch roadmap 1 (and "what's tom up to")

[Tom Lord]

    > From: Colin Walters <address@hidden>

    > On Mon, 2004-06-28 at 12:55 -0700, Tom Lord wrote:

    > > The messages begin to introduce furth, a new extension language that I
    > > plan to add to tla (and use for other purposes as well). =20

    > Why?  What is the pressing feature that requires embedding an
    > ad-hoc extension language?

Thank you for your concern and please retain that critical frame of
mind as we go forward, but:

An extension language is required for usability features, especially
those that simplify both "upstream" and "downstream" configuration and
process integration.  For example, suppose that we want commands like:

        % tla fork <my-favorite-project>

and

        % tla submit <my-favorite-project>  <some-of-my-changes>

Those both require project-specific rules to be followed.  `submit'
especially just cries out for something turing complete.   Other
examples are not hard to construct.

"If it ain't turing complete, I won't touch it," -- [i forget]

As for your denigration that furth will be an _ad_hoc_ extension
language:

Um, it's not.  I could go on at length about why, but: i might be
wrong, right?

So, um, _trust_me_ (but not too far).  I'll be very delicate and
conservative about how furth and arch are integrated.



    > And why is that more important than all the existing changesets
    > waiting to be merged?  (Not to mention a 1.2 security
    > release).

I did.   But please here me out.

It's more important _for_a_little_while_, and not beyond that.
That "little while" is almost over although you'd be completely
correct if you pointed out that it has been taking longer than I said
it would.   Mea culpa (for saying that).

In fact, I'm almost out of (good) excuses to postpone merging and
bug-fixing.  But I've had some good excuses for the past few weeks.
It's taken longer to reach that state than I anticipated but, um,
isn't that part of the beauty of a non-corporate (or
enlightened-corporate) project?  That the maintainer can thrash the
short-term schedule in a way that maximizes efficiency of production
rather than trashing the quality of the project in order to hit some
arbitrary and fairly meaningless deadlines, and thus help to
_protect_the_quality_ of the project?

I know we all have our favorite pending issues but, the truth is, the
last releases are quite fine, warts and all.   The next steps include
some big ones.   I've been feeling a need to think through some of
where we are going before making the problem more complicated by
merging lots of new stuff in.   I'm winding down on that.   Your
patience, now worn thin, has been appreciated.   I won't be stretching
it _much_ further.

TYT
-t


p.s.: some software engineering advice courtesy (indirectly) of the
Burroughs Corporation:

Sometimes, as a software engineer, you'll be pressured because
the people around you think you are taking too long on a task
that they perceive to be trivial.   They'll demand that you 
step up the pace.   If they're right they're right but if they
aren't clearly seeing _why_ you're taking too long and it isn't
easy to explain to them why, remember this scene from a shoot out in
Boulder in 1899:

  Kim is about fifteen yards south walking slowly toward Mike.  Fresh
  southerly winds rustle the leaves ahead of him as he walks "on a
  whispering south wind" ... leaves crackle under his boots [....]
  Twelve yards ten ... Kim walks with his hands swinging loose at his
  sides, the fingers of his right hand brushing the gun butt
  obscenely, his face alert, detached, unreadable.... Eight yards
  .... Suddenly Kim flicks his hand up without drawing as he points at
  Mike with his index finger.

    "BANG! YOU'RE *DEAD*."

  He throws the last word like a stone.  He knows that Mike will _see_
  a gun int he empty hand this will crowd his draw....

  (With a phantom gun in an empty hand he has bluffed Mike into
  violating a basic rule of gunfighting.  TYT.  Take *YOUR* Time.
  Every gunfighter has *his* time.  The time it takes him to draw aim
  fire and *HIT*.  If he tries to beat his time the result is almost
  invariabley a miss ....

    "Snatch and grab," Kim chants.

  Yes, Mike was drawing too fast, much too fast.

  Kim's hand snaps down flexible and sinuous as a whip
  and up with his gun extended in both hands at eye leve.

    "Jerk and miss." 

  He felt Mike's bullet whistle past his left shoulder.

  Trying for a heart shot....

  Both eyes open, Kim sights for a fraction of a second, just
  so long and long enough: the difference between a miss and a 
  hit.  Kim's bullet hits Mike just above the heart with a liquid
  SPLAT as the mercury explodes inside, blowing the aorta to shreds.

  Mike freezes into a still [....]

                        from The Place of Dead Roads
                        William S. Burroughs