[darcs-users] the adventure branch

[Jason Dagit]

On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 11:44 PM, Petr Rockai <me at mornfall.net> wrote:

> Dear Jason,
>
> first things first: you correctly point out below that darcs is a
> volunteer-run project. I am no less a volunteer than anyone else. I will
> probably also disappoint you, because I am not going to give you a very
> detailed reply.
>
> Jason Dagit <dagitj at gmail.com> writes:
> > Who is "we" and where/when was this discussed?  I heard this may have
> > been discussed on IRC.  Could you please provide links to the relevant
> > discussion or summaries?
> >
> >> I'm proposing for the branch to live on
> >> http://darcs.net/adventure. The current review team should stay
> >> responsible for this branch, in addition to mainline (http://darcs.net
> ).
> >
> > Okay.  You're asking the review team to split their attention between
> > the two?  This sounds unpleasant given that as a volunteer run project
> > we're perpetually understaffed and human attention is one of our most
> > valuable resources.
>
> No, I am not asking anyone to do anything and I am certainly not bossing
> around the rest of the team. I am offering my work to go into
> darcs. Take it or leave it. It would be much more comfortable to fork --
> which is what will I do if the review team ends up disagreeing with the
> branching. You don't have to like my code. You however can't stop me
> from writing it.
>

If forking is what you would prefer, then fork it.  Forks don't have to be a
bad thing.  That's actually what the adventure branch is.  But, it's a fork
where you're asking for the rest of the team to join you and asking for it
to be blessed by darcs.net.  You've implicitly involved me.  Therefore, I
want to discuss it.


>
> > How would those design experiments fit into your adventure branch?
>
> First you say you strongly disagree and now want to use it?


There is a wide gap between conditional agreement and accepting/rejecting
unconditionally.  I'm also ASKING you how it would work if I went along with
it.  It's like a thought experiment.  If you cared about my buy-in or
participation, I would ask you to humor me and help me see how design ideas
I have would fit with the adventure branch.


> Well, what
> can I say. You can submit your code for review of course. I outlined the
> rules in my original mail, although they are subject to further review
> team discussion.


I'm trying to initiate that discussion.


>
> > Another thing to consider is that there are lots of arguments
> > available, if you search for them on google, explaining why it's bad
> > to throw away your code and start over.  I really hope that's not or
> > plan our.  The type-witnesses were not easy to get integrated and yet
> > we came up with a plan that let us put them in incrementally.  What I
> > don't know, because I missed out on the previous discussions, is why
> > it is not feasible to refactor the current code to include lots of QC
> > properties and other QA, and then refactor mercilessly?
>
> As ever, I'd appreciate if you did some research on your own part before
> telling others how to do things.
>

?


>
> > If we make correctness a priority from the BEGINNING of the adventure
> > branch and have test driven development (or formal methods driven
> > development) requirements on all code that goes in, I will feel quite
> > happy about the branch.  I'll be telling everyone to use it once its
> > merged back in.  I'll be singing the songs of darcs praise.  Happy
> > lispy will be happy :)
>
> I am not doing this to make anyone particularly happy. I suggest you
> just write a formally verified and thoroughly tested darcs yourself. If
> it turns out to work, it will probably find its users.
>

This is what Ian is doing with Camp.

Also, If I wanted to write all my software by myself I wouldn't be
collaborating with other darcs people.  I'm not in the "throw things away
and rewrite from scratch" group.  I'm on the "let's pool together and
improve what we have" side here.


>
> > If we instead, just do some testing at the end of the adventure branch
> > using our current test suite then I'll be dragging my feet.  I'll be
> > quite afraid of the new branch and probably stick with its predecessor
> > for a few stable release cycles.  I'll be telling my friends to stay
> > away from it too.  Basically, I'll be sad.  Don't make lispy sad :(
>
> No comment.
>
> > Therefore, I really hope we can use the adventure branch as a chance
> > to make a cultural shift to evidence based correctness in all the
> > patches that we accept to darcs.
>
> No. That is a pipe dream. At least for a couple of years yet.
>

Why?


>
> Yours,
>    Petr.
>
> PS: I think you may have forgotten to include your formal proofs with
> your latest refactor.
>

I didn't forget.  I certainly thought about it.  We don't have such a
culture in the darcs dev team.  For refactors that did more than just move
things around or fix warnings (say, the parser refactor), I did provide some
amount of evidence.  I reused our existing tests for the correctness parts
and for performance I created a pathological case, timed it with criterion,
and shared my benchmark code.

Your reply has the tone that you feel attacked by my email. I sent my
original message because I wanted to understand your plan.  Now let's please
discuss the plan.

Jason
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