Working Together

Dan Ingalls Dan.Ingalls at disney.com
Tue Jul 13 23:22:06 UTC 1999


Bob Arning <arning at charm.net> wrote...
>Is it safe to assume that, if "special consideration" is not needed, simply posting bugs, fixes and enhancements to the list is sufficient?

Yes, Bob, it's FAIRLY safe.

....which is to say...

We don't have anyone whose job it is to make sure that everything gets collected properly.  If something comes across that's a no-brainer for inclusion, and I'm not buried in work, and it's not buried in 46 other messages that day, then I will likely scoop it up then and there and put it into our updates, which means it is quite safe to assume it will make it out in the next release.

If any of the preconditions fails, then I will mark it with a priority flag, and come back to it when I'm getting ready to make a release.  At that time, I re-scan all messages with either a priority flag or a [] designation, and do my best to include what makes sense.  It's almost certain that bug fixes will get included, although I think I have missed one or two in the past (before we started the [] convention.

It is NOT certain that an enhancement will make it in.  It is always a judgement call whether an enhancement carries its weight, is consistent with other things, is well written, won't cause bugs, etc. etc.  We (TST) distribute this task and collaborate among ourselves to evaluate, modify and accept or decline various enhancements.  This is the gray area to which my call for advocacy is primarily addressed.  If there's something that seems of dubious value to me, but several folks write in saying, "I tried the XYZ enhancement and it is really neat, plus it's a perfect stepping-stone to type inference and nested name spaces," then I will probably include it.  Conversely if no one seems to care, and someone write in saying it breaks the fileList and runs out of memory whenever you click on it, then I probably won't include it.

I understand the frustration with the feedback cycle on such enhancements that Peter voiced.  I hope that a more aggressive update policy, plus possibly some volunteer help will improve that situation in the future.  Also, one can always send me a message asking if we've had a chance to look at it and what do we think?  It's not an approach that scales well, but it will work until I'm used up.

	- Dan, for The Squeak Team





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