[M3devel] M3 concerns

[Tony Hosking]

My comments embedded:

On Jan 4, 2008, at 4:10 PM, Olaf Wagner wrote:

> Quoting Randy Coleburn <rcoleburn at scires.com>:
>
>> For example, I've tried to get cm3 working for me on Windows XP   
>> several times.  I still can't seem to get the "current" system to   
>> build correctly on XP.  In the past, I have on occasion gotten  
>> the  "system" to build, but then some of my programs don't work  
>> correctly  when rebuilt using the new cm3.  Thus, some changes  
>> somewhere have  "broken" my code, yet all of my code uses the  
>> "safe" subset of the  language.  If I go back to my old reliable  
>> cm3 version 4.1 (the last  one put out before Critical Mass, Inc.  
>> threw in the towel), my code  compiles and works, even on Windows  
>> XP, even using Trestle,  FormsVBT, NetObj, cross-platform pickles  
>> (e.g., pickles shared  between Windows & Unix boxes), etc.!  Much  
>> of my code was originally  developed under Windows NT, so I think  
>> it is a tribute to the  original language developers that my code  
>> and their compiler work  through various OS version upgrades (NT,  
>> 2000, XP) and changes to  the underlying C/C++ compilers used to  
>> build the core components.
>
> Ah well, Windows is a somewhat special topic. I even haven't a system
> here for tests, and most of the other contributors don't use it  
> either.
> I was of the opinion that Jay Krell had fixes or workarounds for most
> current problems (except for the missing LONGINT support), but I  
> haven't
> tried his distribution archives yet. It would indeed be very helpful
> if we could setup regression tests on Windows, too.

LONGINT = INTEGER on Windows, which is fine as far as it goes  
(everything builds appropriately), but not particularly useful.

> As for the stability and interoperability, this is a very complex
> requirement that needs much care and testing. It is difficult to  
> achieve
> in an open source project, at least in one with so few contributors.
> I'm sure Critical Mass did an excellent job on this, but it's been
> a commercial company with other organization and resources. We'll
> have to become better in this respect step by step.
>
> It would also be possible to define a group of reviewers for every
> change, but I doubt that there would be enough competent volunteers,
> and I'm afraid that it would rather repress development of CM3.
> And we really need to have development, as the underlying systems and
> techniques change and we need to adapt to that. So I'd vote for
> free commits for everybody, as long as there are not too many
> contributors, and setup of continually improved regression testing.
> And we don't need to worry, as all changes can be reverted; we won't
> lose development history with CVS.

One option is to have moderated commits for non-core developers.   
After someone has earned the trust of the core developers they can be  
elected as a member of the core team.  This approach is used with the  
Jikes RVM (www.jikesrvm.org).