Feedback from the Gripes and Wishes Campaign

[FeepingCreature]

On Sunday, 21 May 2023 at 23:04:40 UTC, Theo wrote:
> 'some kind' of approval process should have been followed (in 
> relation to ImportC).
>
> That seems self-evident to me.
>
> I'm still bewildered why it's not self-evident to you as well.

I think people are modelling the DIP process as a 
"democratization" of the language. This is simply not the case. 
(And thank goodness!) For instance, there would be little point 
in having Walter file a DIP, as Walter is the person who decides 
whether to accept DIPs. What's he gonna do, reject his own 
feature?

The point of a DIP (as I understand it!) is this: it used to be 
the case that people would engage on these giant pull request 
fights in order to get a feature in the language, only to be 
told, very late in the process, after months of work had already 
gone into it, that the maintainers thought the feature didn't fit 
in with their vision of D. A DIP is a way to get a sort of 
preview, or "go/no-go", on whether a PR is likely to be merged if 
you embark on developing it. The forumgoers can comment on it, 
but their comments are strictly advisory. The point of the 
community review phase is not for the community to approve or 
disapprove a feature! It is merely to bring the DIP into its best 
*technical* form, writing, style, guideline adherence etc. The 
final decision remains, as it always has, with the language 
maintainers, Walter and Atila.