Preparing for the New DIP Process

[Mike Parker]

A few months back when I announced in one of our planning updates 
that we were freezing the DIP queue to focus on stabilization, I 
noted that the DIP process was going to get an overhaul. I've 
since learned that this message didn't stick, so I'll paste here 
what I said then.

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The DIP process is getting a long-needed overhaul. Over time, 
I've had feedback from people who have authored DIPs and those 
who decided not to. There are a number of different opinions 
about how things can change, but there are some common themes 
among them.

I'll write in more detail about this later, but there are a few 
major goals I have with the overhaul:

* reduce the burden on the author
* reduce the amount of time a submitted DIP is in review
* establish support for fleshing out ideas before a DIP is even 
written
* establish support for developing initial DIP drafts before they 
are submitted

Previously, I'd always considered development of the DIP separate 
from the DIP "process", which I saw as beginning with the 
submission of a pull request. In reality, the process begins even 
before an author opens an editor to start typing. I hope that by 
recognizing that, and by providing support for discussing ideas 
and writing the DIP, we'll foster an environment that still 
maintains a relatively high bar for DIPs that get submitted, but 
also creates a filter such that potential DIP authors can be more 
confident that they aren't wasting their time once they get to 
the development stage. By the time they get there, they'll have 
no doubt if it's an idea worth pursuing.

---

I'm getting ready to open things up again. The new process is 
going to be much, much looser than before. I'll have all the 
details in the announcement when we reopen, and I should be able 
to give you a general timeframe after our planning session 
tomorrow.

I'm making this pre-announcement announcement now so that any 
authors with a DIP frozen in the PR queue can have a heads up. 
We'll need to treat these somewhat differently than new DIPs, but 
we'll be ready to get moving on them when the author is. It's 
entirely on the author's schedule, not ours.

And if any of you are thinking about submitting a new DIP, I ask 
you to start thinking about the details, but don't start writing 
it just yet. Once the new process is open, you won't have to sit 
and write it in isolation with no feedback from Walter or Atila. 
You'll be able to get feedback early from both them and the 
community, so you can know very early on if it's something you're 
willing to pursue, and you'll hopefully have a good bit of help 
to get it developed.

The process as it existed had a high bar with the intention of 
encouraging the production of quality DIPs and discouraging 
frivolous proposals. In practice, that high bar was a high 
barrier to entry and ended up discouraging even good proposals. 
I'm optimistic that the new process will lower the barrier to 
entry and still encourage quality proposals.

And by "quality" I'm not referring to the quality of the DIP's 
language. In the new process, the focus will be entirely on the 
details of the proposal and not on the language in which they're 
presented. I'm happy to clean that up myself once a proposal is 
accepted.

Just wanted to put out a heads up. More to come!