The DIP Process

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling]

On Tuesday, 26 February 2019 at 20:09:31 UTC, James Blachly wrote:
> I am not at all describing “case reports,” and your thoughtless 
> dismissal of earnest feedback/suggestion really underlines the 
> criticisms others have leveled against you specifically, and 
> perhaps the process generally.

Even if one is talking full blown research papers, though, there 
is an important difference: if a seriously flawed research paper 
gets published, whatever the field, it is generally very unlikely 
that it will have any meaningful consequences.  The infamous 
exceptions don't exclude the fact that most research papers of 
any kind, correct or not, vanish with little real impact.

On the other hand when one compares to the process for getting 
new drugs approved for use (where any mistake can have VERY 
serious impacts on human health), it's a much longer, more 
time-consuming and involved process, spanning many years.  Given 
the fact that a problematic change to the D language or core 
libraries can cause a lot of pain for established users, the 
process needed for DIPs is inevitably going to err on the more 
stringent and inclined to reject side of things.

That's not to say that there isn't some merit in getting earlier 
feedback from those with veto power, but the trouble is, the real 
merit of an idea often isn't clear until the hard work has been 
done, and in any case, it's quite possible that people will react 
to early rejection by just feeling they need to add more detail 
and putting the work in on a full DIP in any case.