Incubated modules for Phobos

[Peter Alexander]

On 18/12/11 2:18 PM, Piotr Szturmaj wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Normal Phobos submission procedure is usually like that:
>
> 1. write entire module from scratch by oneself
> 2. submit for voting
> 3. rewrite wrong parts, if there are none then add it to Phobos
> 4. otherwise goto 2
>
> It is hard for one person to write entire module in such way it
> satisfies everyone, especially for very new or complex additions, such
> as database handling or cryptography.
>
> Here, I propose that we add experimental "exp" hierarchy to Phobos for
> such projects. I know etc hierarchy may me used for that but IMHO
> separate "exp" would be more appropriate. In this namespace "beta"
> modules will slowly evolve into official std modules.
>
> Some (obvious) advantages are:
>
> * developers may receive feedback very early in the process, saving them
> from mass rewrites when in the opinion of community they made some wrong
> coding decission.
> * developers may receive coding help, i.e. many of them may collaborate
> on one big module.
> * users may test experimental modules early. This is important, because
> usability issues may be catched earlier, not after submission when API
> usually becomes frozen and it is too late.
>
> "Exp" code may be shipped with each release just like "etc" code. Users
> using experimental code should be aware of breaking changes that may be
> introduced with each release or even with each commit.
>
> Thoughts?

Isn't this just reinventing git branches?

If people have their work-in-progress branches on GitHub then people can 
already try them out, submit pull requests etc.  That's the whole point 
of a branch.