[dmd-internals] Pulling D language enhancements

[Walter Bright via dmd-internals]

On 10/10/2014 3:44 AM, Daniel Murphy wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 8:37 PM, Walter Bright <walter at digitalmars.com> wrote:
>> On 10/10/2014 12:14 AM, Daniel Murphy wrote:
>>
>>> I can't say I've seen you making bad decisions because of this.  In an
>> ideal world you wouldn't be put in this position, but it's a lot
>> better than the alternative of_never_  getting a decision on
>> enhancements.
>>
>> I've pulled quite a few enhancements. The changelog is full of them.
> And how many of those didn't have pull requests?

I don't understand the point of the question. All of the changes had pull requests.


>>> I would consider both of those merged enhancements as arguably making
>>> existing features work correctly.
>> This thread is not about whether those were good enhancements or not, it's
>> about the process.
>>
> The process is broken because you obviously don't have time to
> manually approve every single pull request that could potentially be
> seen as an enhancement.  I think it's reasonable for decisions on
> enhancements that can reasonably be seen as 'removing unnecessary
> limitations and inconsistencies of existing features' to be made by
> contributors other than you.
>

I understand where you're coming from, and I understand that it's frustrating to 
funnel things through me. I'm fine with Team DMD pulling bug fixes, 
optimizations, refactorings, platform support, etc., that's why you guys are on 
the team. But language changes are a much higher bar than any person on the team 
deciding to pull it. There are a lot more consequences to such changes. We must 
be very cautious about these, as we'll have to live with mistakes for a long 
time. They need to fit into the long term goals of D, not a local problem. I'm 
uncomfortable with the idea of changes being small - I've blocked enhancements 
in the past because they had consequences that weren't too obvious, or I thought 
that a simpler solution needed to be found, etc. I'd also like to make sure 
there's adequate time for people to find things wrong that nobody noticed, or to 
find better solutions, again because the consequences of a mistake are so much 
higher. Also, many times there are reasons why things are they way they are that 
I have failed to communicate properly, and enhancing them out of existence can 
break them. I also have a larger responsibility to ensure that D works for all 
our users, not just the ones active on the n.g., and I must represent our silent 
users.

I'm fine with people emailing me and pestering me for a review of any particular 
change that has bubbled to the top in importance.