OpenEuphoria

Re: Source changes

• Posted by CChris <christian.cuvier at a?riculture.gouv.fr> Jul 02, 2007
• 626 views

Juergen Luethje wrote:
> 
> Robert Craig wrote:
> 
> > Juergen Luethje wrote:
> 
> >> CChris wrote:
> >> 
> >>> A few hours ago, I checked in the changes related to value() and get(), so
> >>> that
> >>> they both return 4 element sequences. I didn't test the generated docs.
> >> 
> >> <snip>
> >> 
> >> Rob,
> >> 
> >> please do not put these changes into the next Euphoria release.
> > 
> > I can understand your concerns about keeping things
> > simple, but I'm not going to veto this change. I doubt that
> > it will cause much, if any, code to break.
> 
> Backwards compatibility is not my main concern. However, for the sake of
> completeness: The proposed change will cause code to break such as
> }}}
<eucode>
> if equal(value(s), {GET_SUCCESS,a}) then
> </eucode>
{{{

> 

Would you have thought about it without my mentioning it? <smile/>

> > Christian should listen
> > carefully to the arguments of others on this forum, but if he 
> > still thinks it's a good idea, then it's OK with me if he proceeds.
> > People who take the time to learn SVN, and who do the actual 
> > programming work, should be given the benefit of the doubt
> > on small changes like this.
> 
> Sorry, I disagree.
> While knowledge of C and SVN is necessary to make changes to the
> language, this does not mean that everyone who meets these requirements
> will make sensible changes. 

True.

> Sometimes (often?) less is more, and

Only sometimes. More functionality or flexibility is always good.

> sometimes (often?) it is better _not_ do do particular things.
> 
> Maybe there should be a democratic vote about proposed changes? While
> this cannot be perfect, it probably would be much better than allowing 
> everyone with knowledge of C and SVN to change the language.
> 

I fully agree. We just need a polling system. Forum software often offer such
facilities.

> > Besides, in the future, if there are 
> > any bugs in get() or value(), we'll have someone to turn to, 
> > other than me.  
> 
> I can understand, that you appreciate it when Euphoria is more and more
> taken over by the community. And of course this is a "natural" process
> after something has been made open source.
> 
> However, in the past another advantage of Euphoria has been its
> reliability. 

At the cost of an extremely slow evolution pace, the price of which we all pay
and about which many people have complained before leaving.

As far as strong, uniform quality control is concerned, I already posted about
it being necessary, and Derek appeared interested in slowly building a strong
test suite, with community contributions. He has the useful experience of the
D-stress project to back up his claim, so I think your rightful concern will be
properly taken care of. We all should help.

> Every change introduces the risk of new bugs. 

Some people may have said this as early as when cooking was invented. Some bugs,
called bush fires, were quite lethal indeed.

> So changes
> that have almost no benefit better shouldn't be made.

This is logically true, but it all depends on how you evaluate the benefits.

> As far as I can see, _currently_ get() and value() are not buggy ...
> 

They are, please read http://www.openeuphoria.org/EUforum/m14649.html . I have
failed to read your comments on this post so far.

> So maybe you can firstly release a bugfix release of Eu 3.1, without
> any other changes? This would be important in order to provide a stable
> version which we can use for building reliable programs. I would
> appreciate it _very_ much.

Probably a good idea.

> 
> Regards,
>    Juergen

CChris