From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,7f3ed9f7030da79b X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner) Subject: Re: Open-Source and programming style Date: 1998/11/19 Message-ID: <731eia$9dn$1@news.nyu.edu>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 413535393 Distribution: world References: <01be1008$d828fc20$65615c8b@aptiva> X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.nyu.edu X-Trace: news.nyu.edu 911490442 9655 (None) 128.122.140.194 Organization: New York University Ultracomputer Research Lab Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1998-11-19T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article Andi Kleen writes: >Another example is gcc/egcs, although the requirement/new >design documents usually only apply to part of the source because they're >already working with a very large code base. I think gcc/egcs is actually a bad example, especially in terms of requirement documents. It's not like people get together and discuss "well, what should we put in during Q1 99?". It's much more of a "Hey great! Somebody just contibuted most of a new FOOBAR optimization pass! Let's hack it into working shape!". In terms of specifications, of course the base compilers are implementing precisely specificied languages, but the internal interfaces are indeed not well specified and this lack has been a serious problem with these development models. A serious problem in a volunteer-based project is that people will volunteer to do those things they find fun and few people find documentation, code cleanup, and writing specifications to be fun. The only way these things get done is if some central controlling person or group says "You want your code to be used? Then you're going to have to do the documentaiton and cleanup we ask." In the long term, the success or failure of such projects depends on the success of that sort of coercion.