The Problem With DIPs

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

On 6/7/2016 1:32 PM, Jack Stouffer wrote:
> a lousy 28% of DIPs are either definitively closed or accepted.

I understand that is frustrating. It happens to mine as well, though I am less 
bothered by it.

It's a question of framing.

Consider the regression list:

https://issues.dlang.org/buglist.cgi?bug_severity=regression&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&list_id=208862&query_format=advanced

There are currently 34 issues on it, where we implemented a feature and 
inadvertently broke something. There are constant complaints on the forum that 
we have not "fully" implemented things.

What should we be working on? We're doing well to have decisively dealt with 28% 
of the DIPs.

A DIP not being dealt with does not mean it is a bad idea. It pretty much means 
we just aren't ready to deal with it at the moment. It's time may not have come 
yet. But it's not going away, it'll still be there when needed. I've found 
mining DIPs to be quite useful in designing the 'return ref' feature. DIPs are a 
gold mine of ideas that be built upon, and I know where to find them. They're 
great for pointing to when someone says on the n.g. "why don't we do X?" Perhaps 
they can then build on X rather than reinventing the wheel.

DIPs tend to be much more thorough than other ways to propose enhancements, and 
are suitable for heavier topics. On the other hand, n.g. proposals are almost 
invariably something someone spent literally 5 minutes on, and then they scroll 
away and everyone forgets about them. There's no organization to them, and 
pretty much no useful way to mine a database of half a million posts. (I've tried.)

Bugzilla enhancement requests are also lightweight, and as such they are good 
for small proposals. Bugzilla ERs also don't scroll away, and are easily 
searchable. But they are inappropriate if they take more than a few lines to 
describe. Bugzilla is not suitable for in-depth proposals because there is no 
markup and no way to edit previous comments.

Sometimes people initiate enhancement requests in github comments about other 
PRs. That's a sure way to have such forgotten and overlooked.

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Also, as with everything in life, a little promotion is usually necessary if you 
really believe in something. As I endlessly repeat ad nauseum, "build it and 
they will come" is a hollywood myth, and it applies to the internal D community 
just as much as it applies everywhere else. If you've got a good DIP, and you 
believe in it, do some selling of it. Very, very few things sell themselves.