All this talk about finalising D2 makes me worried

[Steven Schveighoffer]

On Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:23:30 -0400, Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 at yahoo.com>  
wrote:

> Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> <snip>
>> What's not finished in D1 that Walter isn't already working on because  
>> it's broken in D2 too?
>
> Everything that Walter hasn't yet got round to working on.  I guess it's  
> just a matter of what Walter's priorities are.

So you think there *are* parts of D1 that are broken or incomplete, yet  
working properly in D2?  An example would be nice.

>
>> My point is, you are worried that D1 won't be finished before D2 is  
>> finished,
>
> No I'm not.  I'm worried by people seemingly asking for D2's stake in  
> the ground to be placed before D2 is finished, which'll be even worse if  
> even D1 isn't finished by that time.

In order for D2 to be finished, D1 will be finished, because D2's bugs, or  
incompletions, encompass D1's bugs.

>
>> but I'm saying that won't happen if all the bugs in D1 are also in D2.
>>  Every release of D2 is coupled with a release of D1, with bugs fixed  
>> in both versions.  This idea that D1 isn't being worked on seems  
>> incorrect to me.
>
> This idea isn't part of anything I said, so I don't know where you got  
> it from.

I got it from when you said D1 should be finished before D2 is finished.   
My point is, yeah, that's a given considering all of D1's bugs exist as  
bugs in D2.

> What I may have said, however, is something to the effect that the bits  
> of D1 being worked on don't seem to be the major ones towards D1 being  
> finished, such as cleaning up the spec.  One thing I do know is that  
> it's been ages since anything under issue 677 that I filed has been  
> fixed.

Large successful D1 projects still seem to exist without a complete spec.   
I'm not so sure a complete D1 spec would miraculously spark a D  
revolution.  I have a few outstanding bugs myself that could be fixed, but  
Walter is only one guy.  And he's trying to get his vision for D2 working,  
so he can stop saying "trust me, this way is better" and start saying  
"see, this way is better, here's the proof".  I can understand that.

All I'm saying is, you're not going to get an engineer to stop working on  
the interesting fun project to go dot i's and cross t's on a mostly  
functional prior project, except for probably bug-fixes.  Especially when  
he does it for free :)

-Steve