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digitalmars.D.announce - The New DIP Process

reply Mike Parker <aldacron gmail.com> writes:
After discussion in a recent meeting, we're ready now to start 
accepting DIPs for review. And that means it's time to announce 
the new process.

The main goal of the new process is to reduce the amount of 
"process". The rules of the prior system were intended to create 
a moderately high barrier of entry in order to discourage 
frivolous proposals. In practice, they created an extremely high 
barrier of entry that also discouraged serious proposals, 
frustrated several DIP authors who went through the process, 
created too much of a time sink for everyone involved, and did 
not allow for early indication of the chances that an author's 
time and effort would result in a favorable outcome.

The new system simplifies the process by putting most of the 
control in the hands of DIP authors. Some key points:

* Feedback begins with the initial DIP idea.
* The predefined review rounds are gone.
* Multiple DIPs can be under review at the same time.
* The DIP author decides when a draft is ready to submit for 
assessment.

Most of the process takes place in two new forums: DIP Ideas and 
DIP Development (dip.idea and dip.development on the NNTP 
server). The purpose of the Ideas forum is to determine if 
developing the DIP is feasible. The purpose of the Development 
forum is to strengthen proposals in development.

The process works as follows.

* A potential DIP author (or someone looking for an author) posts 
a description of the idea in the DIP Ideas forum for community 
discussion and feedback. Periodically, I'll make sure Walter and 
Atila are aware of the new idea posts so they can provide their 
initial thoughts. This should give a potential author a good 
sense of the DIPs chances, e.g., great idea, go for it; maybe, 
give it a go if you'd like; no way, no how. Based on this 
feedback, the potential author can decide whether to proceed with 
development.
* When an author does proceed, then once the initial draft is 
ready, they should make a new post in the DIP Development forum 
with a link to the draft for community feedback. They should 
address feedback as necessary by revising the DIP or explaining 
why they disagree. The author should expect to allow two or three 
weeks for feedback just to give stakeholders enough time to 
process it and formulate an opinion, particularly if they want 
feedback from Walter and Atila at this stage.
* After at least two or three weeks of feedback, the author can 
contact me when the revised draft is ready. If the extent of 
revision is significant, I'll ask the author to make a new DIP 
Development thread for feedback on the new draft. Otherwise, I'll 
ask the author to submit a PR to the DIP repository.
* When the PR is submitted, I'll merge it, assign a DIP number, 
edit as necessary, and email Walter and Atila for assessment. 
They'll have two weeks to review it (though depending on 
circumstances, we can extend that as necessary). As before, 
they'll accept it, reject it, or ask for modifications.

I want to emphasize that though any DIP that makes it to 
assessment in this new process should theoretically have a strong 
chance of acceptance, there can never be a guarantee. For 
example, Walter or Atila or someone else may uncover a major 
overlooked flaw before the decision is made. Or an author may 
have proceeded with a DIP that Walter and/or Atila expressed 
skepticism toward at some point in the Ideas or Development forum 
and the DIP failed to convince.

The key point is that we want the author to know before the first 
draft whether the DIP has a strong, weak, or near-zero chance, 
and during development whether they're generally going in the 
right direction, but no one can offer a 100% guarantee.

All potential DIP authors should read the DIP Authoring Process 
doc here:

https://github.com/dlang/DIPs/blob/master/docs/process-authoring.md

Once the development is underway, the author should also read the 
Authoring Guidelines:

https://github.com/dlang/DIPs/blob/master/docs/guidelines-authors.md

I should note that while we still want the language of the final 
draft to be semi-formal to formal, it's not something the author 
needs to be overly concerned about during development. Once the 
PR is submitted, I'll clean up the language as much as necessary 
and check with the author to ensure I've not changed the meaning 
of anything. The guidelines describe some simple things the 
author can keep in mind during development, but getting the 
details right is the primary concern at that stage.

Finally, I want to make it clear that the new forums will be 
heavily and strictly moderated. We want focused, on-topic 
discussion there. On the web interface, each forum will have a 
banner at the top of the page that includes a link to the forum 
guidelines:

https://github.com/dlang/DIPs/blob/master/docs/guidelines-forums.md

With the publication of this announcement, Vladimir will deploy 
the new forums when he's ready to do so. At that point, the DIP 
Ideas forum will be open for business.

It is generally a requirement that a DIP idea be submitted to the 
Ideas forum first. I will delete any new thread in the 
Development forum for a draft DIP that was not first discussed in 
the Ideas forum. However, I will make exceptions if an author 
contacts me first with an explanation of why they want to skip 
the Ideas stage and makes it clear they understand what they're 
giving up.

We'll give this new process some time to see how flows. We can 
tweak it as we need to over time to work out any kinks.
Feb 27
next sibling parent reply "Richard (Rikki) Andrew Cattermole" <richard cattermole.co.nz> writes:
Excellent.

I haven't heard anything about my export DIP, the last that was said 
from Mike is that Walter might want to review it external to the DIP 
process. Unfortunately no feedback beyond that so unless I'm told 
otherwise, its DIP TIME!

As it has already had a lot of back and forth from Walter and me with 
the help of Adam Wilson (very much appreciated!), it's ready for a 
development forum post.

So Mike, once the forum is up, am I in the clear to start at development?

https://gist.github.com/rikkimax/1d7cfdb8ed74e9e4efc9ba0208f42e7e
Feb 28
parent Mike Parker <aldacron gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 28 February 2024 at 08:46:13 UTC, Richard (Rikki) 
Andrew Cattermole wrote:


 As it has already had a lot of back and forth from Walter and 
 me with the help of Adam Wilson (very much appreciated!), it's 
 ready for a development forum post.

 So Mike, once the forum is up, am I in the clear to start at 
 development?

 https://gist.github.com/rikkimax/1d7cfdb8ed74e9e4efc9ba0208f42e7e


Yeah, go for it.
Feb 28
prev sibling next sibling parent Paul Backus <snarwin gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 28 February 2024 at 03:28:01 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:

 After discussion in a recent meeting, we're ready now to start 
 accepting DIPs for review. And that means it's time to announce 
 the new process.


Very excited to see this. I've already submitted my own DIP idea 
to get the ball rolling, and am looking forward to seeing what 
the rest of the community comes up with.
Feb 28
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Jonathan M Davis <newsgroup.d jmdavisprog.com> writes:
On Tuesday, February 27, 2024 8:28:01 PM MST Mike Parker via Digitalmars-d-
announce wrote:

 Most of the process takes place in two new forums: DIP Ideas and
 DIP Development (dip.idea and dip.development on the NNTP
 server). The purpose of the Ideas forum is to determine if
 developing the DIP is feasible. The purpose of the Development
 forum is to strengthen proposals in development.


I see that they're up on the NNTP server, and the web forum is hooked up to
them, but there is no mailing list. Is that forthcoming and just isn't up
yet since that takes some time, or are these lists not going to have mailing
lists like the others?

- Jonathan M Davis
Feb 28
parent reply Mike Parker <aldacron gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 28 February 2024 at 19:24:32 UTC, Jonathan M Davis 
wrote:


 I see that they're up on the NNTP server, and the web forum is 
 hooked up to them, but there is no mailing list. Is that 
 forthcoming and just isn't up yet since that takes some time, 
 or are these lists not going to have mailing lists like the 
 others?


They had to be up on NNTP for them to be added to the forums. I 
just didn't think about the mailing list. I'll contact Brad.
Feb 28
next sibling parent Jonathan M Davis <newsgroup.d jmdavisprog.com> writes:
On Wednesday, February 28, 2024 7:18:29 PM MST Mike Parker via Digitalmars-d-
announce wrote:

 On Wednesday, 28 February 2024 at 19:24:32 UTC, Jonathan M Davis

 wrote:

 I see that they're up on the NNTP server, and the web forum is
 hooked up to them, but there is no mailing list. Is that
 forthcoming and just isn't up yet since that takes some time,
 or are these lists not going to have mailing lists like the
 others?


 They had to be up on NNTP for them to be added to the forums. I
 just didn't think about the mailing list. I'll contact Brad.


Thanks.

- Jonathan M Davis
Feb 28
prev sibling parent reply Brad Roberts <braddr puremagic.com> writes:
On 2/28/2024 7:34 PM, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

 On Wednesday, February 28, 2024 7:18:29 PM MST Mike Parker via Digitalmars-d-
 announce wrote:

 On Wednesday, 28 February 2024 at 19:24:32 UTC, Jonathan M Davis

 wrote:

 I see that they're up on the NNTP server, and the web forum is
 hooked up to them, but there is no mailing list. Is that
 forthcoming and just isn't up yet since that takes some time,
 or are these lists not going to have mailing lists like the
 others?


 They had to be up on NNTP for them to be added to the forums. I
 just didn't think about the mailing list. I'll contact Brad.


 
 Thanks.
 
 - Jonathan M Davis


I set them up earlier today.  It's entirely possible I missed something 
while configuring them as it's been just over 6 years since the last new 
group was added, so do shout if anything looks off.  I see that the 
first two messages already posted made it through, so my confidence is 
reasonably high.

Also worth noting, the news group names are NOT dip.idea and 
dip.development.  They're actually digitalmars.dip.ideas (note the 
plural) and digitalmars.dip.development.

I made the list names just dip.ideas  and dip.development  for brevity.

Later,
Brad
Feb 28
parent Mike Parker <aldacron gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 29 February 2024 at 05:44:08 UTC, Brad Roberts wrote:


 I set them up earlier today.  It's entirely possible I missed 
 something while configuring them as it's been just over 6 years 
 since the last new group was added, so do shout if anything 
 looks off.  I see that the first two messages already posted 
 made it through, so my confidence is reasonably high.

 Also worth noting, the news group names are NOT dip.idea and 
 dip.development.  They're actually digitalmars.dip.ideas (note 
 the plural) and digitalmars.dip.development.

 I made the list names just dip.ideas  and dip.development  for 
 brevity.

 Later,
 Brad


Much appreciated, Brad!
Feb 29
prev sibling parent Jonathan M Davis <newsgroup.d jmdavisprog.com> writes:
On Wednesday, February 28, 2024 10:44:08 PM MST Brad Roberts via Digitalmars-
d-announce wrote:

 On 2/28/2024 7:34 PM, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

 On Wednesday, February 28, 2024 7:18:29 PM MST Mike Parker via
 Digitalmars-d->
 announce wrote:

 On Wednesday, 28 February 2024 at 19:24:32 UTC, Jonathan M Davis

 wrote:

 I see that they're up on the NNTP server, and the web forum is
 hooked up to them, but there is no mailing list. Is that
 forthcoming and just isn't up yet since that takes some time,
 or are these lists not going to have mailing lists like the
 others?


 They had to be up on NNTP for them to be added to the forums. I
 just didn't think about the mailing list. I'll contact Brad.


 Thanks.

 - Jonathan M Davis


 I set them up earlier today.  It's entirely possible I missed something
 while configuring them as it's been just over 6 years since the last new
 group was added, so do shout if anything looks off.  I see that the
 first two messages already posted made it through, so my confidence is
 reasonably high.

 Also worth noting, the news group names are NOT dip.idea and
 dip.development.  They're actually digitalmars.dip.ideas (note the
 plural) and digitalmars.dip.development.

 I made the list names just dip.ideas  and dip.development  for brevity.

 Later,
 Brad


I was able to subscribe. Thanks!

- Jonathan M Davis
Feb 28