DIP 1009--Improve Contract Usability--Preliminary Review Round 2 Begins

MysticZach via Digitalmars-d digitalmars-d at puremagic.com
Wed Jul 26 17:18:38 PDT 2017


On Wednesday, 26 July 2017 at 08:12:39 UTC, Olivier FAURE wrote:
> I... think you misunderstood me? I shouldn't have used the word 
> 'proposals', I should have said 'suggestions'.
>
> What I meant was "I think it would be better for the current 
> version of DIP 1009 to include a 'Rejected alternative 
> syntaxes' that would include a summary of the previously 
> discussed suggestions for improving contract readability."
>
> MysticZach argues that such a section would be pointless since 
> the language authors read the previous version of DIP 1009, but 
> I still think adding it would be a good idea (for posterity and 
> to streamline discussions in this thread).

I don't know. DIPs have both a forward-looking and a 
backward-looking aspect. The forward is to convince the language 
authors of the need/value of a specific language change. The 
backward is to record a history of discussions so that people can 
learn why things are the way they are. They are both valuable in 
their own way, but I think the forward-looking aspect is more 
valuable. I'd like some guidance from the leadership as to the 
important of the backward-looking aspect of DIPs. For example, 
DIP1003 was actually rewritten to excise the alternatives and 
keep only the one adopted. The motive given was that people 
looking for the history could examine prior versions of the DIP. 
I guess the motive is that too much history can end up cluttering 
the important information.

That said, I think that making good decisions for the language 
far outweighs any concerns about DIPs themselves. So we should 
really be focusing on that.


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