the Hopwood design process

[Thomas Lindgren]

--- chandru <chandrashekhar.mullaparthi@REDACTED>
wrote:

> On 14/03/06, Thomas Lindgren
> <thomasl_erlang@REDACTED> wrote:
> >
> > Anyway, let me add two things to the new features
> > discussion.
> >
> > First, pragmatically speaking, it might be useful
> to
> > release some features as "experimental", with the
> > explicit proviso that they can be modified or
> perhaps
> > even removed in the future, until classified as
> > "stable". This allows for community feedback
> without
> > locking into a given design beforehand.
> 
> This is quite easily done when new libraries are
> being introduced
> which do not need any special support from the
> runtime system. But
> when you are talking about a new language feature
> such as this I guess
> it becomes very hard because you've got to change
> the compiler, beam,
> debugger and heavens knows what else - all in one
> go. To do that in a
> non commital way can be very hard?

Well, all it means is that OTP reserves the right to
change how an "experimental" feature works (in
particular semantics, which I guess is the sticky
part). Backwards compatibility not guaranteed. So,
it's more of an organizational/social/community issue
than an implementation/coding thing. Does that make
sense?

Best,
Thomas


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