Re: top-down design + nevermind

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

   From: (Chris Beggy ) address@hidden
   Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 19:08:48 -0400

   What do you think [re guile direction]?

i think guile is moving towards a federated development model.  whatever
people's inclinations and abilities are, they can band together and fork
a "guile design instance" (and code, presumably) that is candidate for
integration using due process.

basically, SIGs like for python, but recognizing plurality.  the goal
remains to please the users, but the users have to take responsibility
to communicate precisely what pleases them, and work the system to get
their desired results.  incompatible branches are somewhat frowned upon,
but should not be denied berth.  emacs/xemacs watchers wag their fingers
but maybe they can help prevent similar long-term pain.

"due process" sounds heavy but the hint here is to get one of your SIG
members write privs early on (to get write privs you have to follow some
slackful methods so presumably your repo insider can find the balance
points for your SIG on the tightrope across the chaos).

the overall effect is that specific designs will be implemented for
their proponents' benefit, and maybe busy bees will cross-pollinate the
good bits into the common base, as is their style.  all guile users are
programmers and all programmers who use guile are encouraged to expand
their usage of guile to include changing guile and telling others about
it.

(guile is not an application -- it is a framework for ("extensive" :-)
experimentation in language and runtime implementation -- how's that for
an ad blurb?)

"but what if i just want to use (the standard) Guile?".  well, figure
out what is "standard" and form a Standard Interest Group.  :->

btw, perhaps there are other interesting grouping terms besides BOF and
SIG -- be creative!

thi