Phobos.testing

[Denis Koroskin]

On Sun, 11 Oct 2009 07:06:30 +0400, Andrei Alexandrescu  
<SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote:

> Michel Fortin wrote:
>> On 2009-10-10 19:01:35 -0400, dsimcha <dsimcha at yahoo.com> said:
>>
>>> Overall, the point is that there should be a well-defined process for  
>>> getting
>>> code into Phobos and a well-defined place to post this code and  
>>> comment on it.
>>>  Bugzilla probably doesn't cut it because it's not easy to download,  
>>> compile
>>> and test lots of different snippets of code from here.
>>  There should indeed be a process for proposing new modules or major  
>> features. I don't care much what it is, but it should make code  
>> available for review from all the interested parties, and allow public  
>> discussion about this code. Whether this discussion should happen on  
>> this newsgroup or elsewhere, I'm not sure however.
>>  And it'd be nice if it could auto-generate documentation from the  
>> proposed modules: glancing at the documentation often gives you a  
>> different perspective on the API, and it'd encourage people to write  
>> good documentation.
>
> I'm all for accepting additions to Phobos, and for putting in place a  
> process to do so. I suggest we follow a procedure used to great effect  
> by Boost. They have a formal process in place that consists of a  
> preliminary submission, a refinement period, a submission, a review, and  
> a vote.
>
> http://www.boost.org/development/submissions.html
>
> I compel you all to seriously consider it, and am willing to provide  
> website space and access.
>
>
> Andrei

It's great for Boost, because Boost has an extremely large user base.  
Besides, Boost is large enough already and there are a lot of people who  
is willing to contribute, so a very strict policy is needed.

Phobos is not like Boost. I believe a more open policy is required to make  
people contribute to it.

For example, Tango is open to everyone, that's why it evolves so fast.  
Although small, contributions are made in a daily basis by a lot of  
people. They are not contributing entire libraries, of course, some small  
bug-fixes, performance improvements, typos, name change (for consistency),  
etc. Step-by-step it is getting better and better.

On the contrary, Phobos has stalled.

I submitted a few Phobos bugs to bugzilla. They are still not addressed.  
Having 2-3 people with write access to Phobos is clearly not enough -  
there is not enough human power. That's bugzilla entries are left without  
answers, bugs are not fixed.

I don't submit them anymore. It just doesn't work. I see a lot of quirks  
in Phobos, huge performance problems (it allocates every time, often  
without any reason) and just typos.
Given a direct svn access, I could easily fix some of them, but I'm too  
lazy to waste my time on creating one line long patches, making bugzilla  
reports, etc. And what then? Waiting like 3 years until they are  
addressed? No, thanks.