[erlang-questions] Erlang Extension Proposals (EEPs)

[Dominic Williams]

Hi Per,

>> I don't see any use for informational and process
>> EEPs. Let's just have plain EEPs.
>
> I don't see the problem with having informational and
> process EEPs. It just tells the reader what he should
> expect.

Yes, clearly, if we are to have standard, informational and
process EEPs, labelling them as such provides a useful
indication.

What I said was that I don't see any point in having
informational or process EEPs at all. An informational EEP
sounds like system principles and other things that are
currently in Erlang documentation. What motivation is there
for putting them somewhere else, especially as Kenneth
announced plans to open source the Erlang/OTP documentation
and associated tools ? And why go to the trouble of using
this process just for something that everyone is free to
ignore ? As for a process EEP, it sounds like it might be
appropriate for a language like Python, which is managed by
a foundation, but I don't see the point for Erlang. The
process will be simpler and the list of EEPs less cluttered
if we just have standard EEPs.

> I think that a reference implementaion should be required
> before a EEP is accepted. A reference implementation is
> not needed to become an EEP. I think it would be hard to
> accept a "Standards Track" EEP without an implementation
> as it is difficult to evaluate an EEP without an
> implementation.

Well, it would be even better to wait for several years of
use in real projects !

Maybe I am too pragmatic but I think what is mostly needed
is a way to achieve a community consensus around language or
library evolution /before/ money is spent on implementation.

Providing a reference implementation could still be allowed,
of course, I just think making it a requirement is overkill,
and a good way to prevent the /user/ community from playing
much of a part in the process.

> I think that there is a point to require an EEP to conform
> to a certain format and to publish EEPs in a consistent
> format on erlang.org because it makes it easier to refer
> to EEPs.

With the simple system I am suggesting, you could refer to:

www.erlang.org/eep#15

Which would take you to the right line in the list of
EEPs. You would see its title and status, and you would then
click on a link to take you to the appropriate post in
erlang-questions.

Is having www.erlang.org/eep/15/accepted.html directly worth
all the trouble of managing tools and editing EEPs in a
special format ?

Besides the simplification, using the erlang-questions
archive also means that when you view an EEP, you have
direct access to the community discussions that occurred
around it.

Regards,

Dominic Williams
http://www.dominicwilliams.net

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