Re: Documentation of Architecture / Design?

[Douglas A Linhardt]

Han-Wen,

On 3/19/2004 4:43 PM, Han-Wen Nienhuys wrote:
> address@hidden writes:
> 
>>      (iterator-ctor . ,Percent_repeat_iterator::constructor)
>>
>>I'm really confused.  When macro arguments are concatenated to form new 
>>tokens,
>>there should be, at minimum, some comments describing what's being created.  
>>And
>>having an outside reference that talks about it would give a developer a hint 
>>of
>>what lies ahead.
> 
> 
> Point taken,
> 
> (but I've added a comment in CVS anyway)
> 
> 

Nothing wrong with good comments.  I've never used CVS, so I assume I will be
able to get this in 2.1.32?

>>I like the freedom of coding without worrying about comments, too.  But with a
>>project this size with multiple volunteer developers in multiple time zones,
>>some sort of umbrella design document would not be a bad idea.
> 
> 
> I appreciate that - and I think that "multiple volunteer developers in
> multiple time zones" would in itself be a very good idea.
> 

Maybe I'm just jumping to conclusions here.  I've seen patches come in on this
list, and I've seen the list of contributors somewhere, but maybe it's a much
more intimate group than I imagined.  I will continue to plug away on developing
constructs for handbell music, and I plan to be a regular contributor at least
up to that point, so for the forseeable future, ++intimateGroupSize. After the
handbell notation is finished, I'll just play it by ear.  But as summer comes,
time will be at more of a premium.  Baseball season approaches, and I've got my
son's team to coach :) !

> FWIW, the design has evolved, and still is.  I find it very difficult
> to document bad design, and prefer to fix it. What typically happens,
> is that I am forced to write down how stuff works in the the
> manual. At that point, I realize how broken it is, and dive into the
> source to fix the design. For example, the distinction between Context
> and Translator is only one month old.
> 
> 

I'll start small with basic unfrastructure stuff that shouldn't change a lot and
go from there.

Oops.  5:00.  Time to go home.  I've got to spend more time at work doing work
and less time communicating to the developer list :(

Doug