Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [ATTENTION PLEASE] standards process

[David Allouche]

On Fri, 2004-09-03 at 01:29 +0100, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 02, 2004 at 05:37:29PM -0500, John Meinel wrote:
> > 
> > This is very similar to python's Python Enhancement Proposals (PEP)
> > http://www.python.org/peps/
> 
> Except the PEP description is wordier and less detailed, and
> accomplishes very little. So that's a red herring.

You are the red herring.

PEP is a different process than SRFI.

The Scheme community is very different from the Python community.

"Standard tracks" PEP aims at being implemented in the reference
implementation of Python which is maintained by GvR. Just mention the
idea of reference implementation of Scheme and you'll be either bozoized
or you'll end up with a civil war on your hands, depending on how much
karma you have.

As long as the SRFI author pushes his proposal forward he can move it
into final status. I heard some people say "yeah this SRFI is final but
it's crap, and nobody with some sense would implement it". That cannot
happen with PEP because if GvR says "this is crap, I will not accept
it", then the PEP is dead.

The SRFI process is designed for the standardisation of features which
have been tried in actual use for at least some time. That makes sense
because the Scheme implementations are so fragmented and the Scheme
language is so flexible. The PEP process is designed for discussion,
design and consensus gathering around Pythonic problems which are not
yet solved.

SRFIs are discussed by small groups of people in very specialised
mailing lists (each SRFI has its own mailing list). PEPs are explicitly
meant to be discussed with the community at large.

Generally, any such document can only provide guidelines for a process.
Each community is different and is best served by a different process.
The actual implementation of the process depends on the social rules in
effect in the community at least as much as on the guidelines.

Etc... I could find other differences. Calling that a red herring just
exposes your lack of understanding of social communities and their
importance.

-- 
                                                            -- ddaa