
Friend on the GHC proposals steering committee I think it is helpful to have our shepherding process to drive debate to a conclusion. But I think we are losing value by holding technical discussions on the email list, rather than on the proposal's own thread. I'm not sure if the steering committee email list is visible to all; but even if it is, the info on a particular proposal is harder to find. The thread below is a case in point. Good stuff from Joachim, but not visible to the author or the world; result, lost insights. Suggestion: could we hold all the committee debase on the proposal thread, thereby allowing the author to chime in if need be? There might be some messages we want to be private -- very well, use the email list for those, but my sense is that 95% are absolutely publishable. What changes when the shepherd kicks in? Answer: the committee switches from observer (and contribute if you like) mode, to obligation-to-consider mode. Simon | -----Original Message----- | From: ghc-steering-committee [mailto:ghc-steering-committee- | bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Joachim Breitner | Sent: 20 February 2018 03:37 | To: ghc-steering-committee@haskell.org | Subject: Re: [ghc-steering-committee] Plugin recompilation avoidance | interface (#108) | | Hi Ben, | | thanks for kicking this off. | | Am Montag, den 19.02.2018, 22:04 -0500 schrieb Ben Gamari: | > The proposal addresses a long-standing limitation (#7414) of the GHC | > plugin interface which has become increasingly visible to users in | > recent years. While the particular approach proposed breaks existing | > plugin users, it is expressive enough to allow GHC to perform more | > aggressive recompilation avoidance in the future [1]. Moreover, the | > smart constructors proposed should make for a reasonably smooth | > migration path. | > | > Given that the plugins appears to have buy-in from a few notable | > plugin authors, I recommend that we accept this proposal. | | How realistic is it to do the partial module recompilation thing that | warrants multiple PluginRecompile values per module? For this to be | useful the compiler would have to | | * calculate the typechecker plugin’s hash for module M | * notice that it has changed, and start compiling M | * but then, when we have core, magically notice that the output of | the | desugarer has not changed, and consider to abort calculation | * but then notice that a core2core plugin was involved, and ask that | for the new hash | * and then this hash must be unchanged | * and then really the compilation has ended. | | Is that realistic? Can someone fill this example with concrete life? | | Maybe I am just not seeing what people have in mind – but I feel | unless this really is more than a very vague idea, we should consider | the simpler variant where each plugin gets to calculate a single hash | per module – and not possibly many in various stages. | | Another way of putting it: The compiler pipeline is (simplified) | | 1. decide what to compiler | 2. parse | 3. typecheck | 4. desguar | 5. optimize | 6. code gen | | Plugins so far hook into step 3 and 5. Every one of these steps | probably eventually deserves a plugin hook. This proposal is about | adding one to step 1. With this view, I find the “add a single | function to Plugin”, as described in | https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithu | b.com%2Fghc-proposals%2Fghc-proposals%2Fpull%2F108%23issuecomment- | 362671438&data=04%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7Cc1fc916f00464b7e868 | c08d578133094%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C63654694617 | 3205145%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLC | JBTiI6Ik1haWwifQ%3D%3D%7C- | 1&sdata=C4lfSbadTT23lvfARKolUVSPfPfJSt5PvqJDTvJfYFQ%3D&reserved=0 | much more convincing. | | Cheers, | Joachim | | | -- | Joachim “nomeata” Breitner | mail@joachim-breitner.de | | https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.j | oachim- | breitner.de%2F&data=04%7C01%7Csimonpj%40microsoft.com%7Cc1fc916f00464b | 7e868c08d578133094%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C636546 | 946173205145%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luM | zIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwifQ%3D%3D%7C- | 1&sdata=w7Bv0He4imipDZAdnZhNc2EEwXCo7ejMNZ1o%2BGp7HWU%3D&reserved=0

Hi, Am Dienstag, den 20.02.2018, 11:19 +0000 schrieb Simon Peyton Jones:
The thread below is a case in point. Good stuff from Joachim, but not visible to the author or the world; result, lost insights.
actually, in this case, I did bring this up in the discussion on GitHub; the author was not convinced and brought the proposal forward anyways, so now I am trying to sway the committee instead :-)
Suggestion: could we hold all the committee debase on the proposal thread, thereby allowing the author to chime in if need be? There might be some messages we want to be private -- very well, use the email list for those, but my sense is that 95% are absolutely publishable.
This list is public, do not post private stuff here! It is just a bit “less visible” and less noisy. Having technical discussions on GitHub is a reasonable thing to do. It will be more noisy, i.e. many people chiming in, but that can of course also be a good thing.
What changes when the shepherd kicks in? Answer: the committee switches from observer (and contribute if you like) mode, to obligation-to-consider mode.
Correct. Shall we still require mails to the list when * A proposal was put forward * A shepherd makes a suggestions, and invites the committee to comment (now on GitHub) * The shepherd or the secretary observes consensus, and declares a decision? (This will actually make my life of assembling the “Status” mails easier, but it will make it harder to determine consensus.) All in all, I’m up for trying it out! Cheers, Joachim -- Joachim Breitner mail@joachim-breitner.de http://www.joachim-breitner.de/

I am sorry, but I am against moving the committee discussion to GitHub. This is for the following reasons: * I don’t think, we will gain anything by moving to GitHub. Nothing is lost on the email list. The proposal author and anybody else can follow along as this is a public list. * Proposals have a life cycle: writing, public commenting, refinement, and finally committee discussion (and then it may go around again if the proposal needs to be revised). Having the public, collaborative writing, public commenting, refinement steps on GitHub and the somewhat closed committee decision process on different media makes the mode change very explicit, which is good. * I get a lot of email from GitHub. Most of it I deleted right away (including most ghc-proposal GitHub messages). Having the committee decision process by email makes it clear when I need to pay attention (without having to consult GitHub ticket labels). * The Shepard has an incentive to briefly summarise the outcome of the committee discussion on GitHub after the decision is made (if it is all on GitHub, everybody needs to wade though everything). * On GitHub it is much harder to see which comments are new, especially if the thread is long, because there was already a long community discussion phase. * The committee discussion may be interleaved with additional public comments, because anybody else can comment, too, at the time, making it even harder to distinguish the committee discussion. Cheers, Manuel
21.02.2018 00:58 Joachim Breitner
: Hi,
Am Dienstag, den 20.02.2018, 11:19 +0000 schrieb Simon Peyton Jones:
The thread below is a case in point. Good stuff from Joachim, but not visible to the author or the world; result, lost insights.
actually, in this case, I did bring this up in the discussion on GitHub; the author was not convinced and brought the proposal forward anyways, so now I am trying to sway the committee instead :-)
Suggestion: could we hold all the committee debase on the proposal thread, thereby allowing the author to chime in if need be? There might be some messages we want to be private -- very well, use the email list for those, but my sense is that 95% are absolutely publishable.
This list is public, do not post private stuff here! It is just a bit “less visible” and less noisy.
Having technical discussions on GitHub is a reasonable thing to do. It will be more noisy, i.e. many people chiming in, but that can of course also be a good thing.
What changes when the shepherd kicks in? Answer: the committee switches from observer (and contribute if you like) mode, to obligation-to-consider mode.
Correct.
Shall we still require mails to the list when
* A proposal was put forward * A shepherd makes a suggestions, and invites the committee to comment (now on GitHub) * The shepherd or the secretary observes consensus, and declares a decision?
(This will actually make my life of assembling the “Status” mails easier, but it will make it harder to determine consensus.)
All in all, I’m up for trying it out!
Cheers, Joachim -- Joachim Breitner mail@joachim-breitner.de http://www.joachim-breitner.de/ _______________________________________________ ghc-steering-committee mailing list ghc-steering-committee@haskell.org https://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-steering-committee

Much as I like GitHub for some kinds of work, I don't think I'd move
this sort of thing to GitHub. Attached screenshot is of the gmail
folder my emails from GitHub get redirected to. I get many and very
few of them are something I should look at. I clear my notifications
using the GitHub notifications menu rather than via email, yet email
is the primary way I'd consume to respond to anything on this mailing
list.
Naturally, YMMV.
--- Chris
On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 8:23 PM, Manuel M T Chakravarty
I am sorry, but I am against moving the committee discussion to GitHub. This is for the following reasons:
* I don’t think, we will gain anything by moving to GitHub. Nothing is lost on the email list. The proposal author and anybody else can follow along as this is a public list.
* Proposals have a life cycle: writing, public commenting, refinement, and finally committee discussion (and then it may go around again if the proposal needs to be revised). Having the public, collaborative writing, public commenting, refinement steps on GitHub and the somewhat closed committee decision process on different media makes the mode change very explicit, which is good.
* I get a lot of email from GitHub. Most of it I deleted right away (including most ghc-proposal GitHub messages). Having the committee decision process by email makes it clear when I need to pay attention (without having to consult GitHub ticket labels).
* The Shepard has an incentive to briefly summarise the outcome of the committee discussion on GitHub after the decision is made (if it is all on GitHub, everybody needs to wade though everything).
* On GitHub it is much harder to see which comments are new, especially if the thread is long, because there was already a long community discussion phase.
* The committee discussion may be interleaved with additional public comments, because anybody else can comment, too, at the time, making it even harder to distinguish the committee discussion.
Cheers, Manuel
21.02.2018 00:58 Joachim Breitner
: Hi,
Am Dienstag, den 20.02.2018, 11:19 +0000 schrieb Simon Peyton Jones:
The thread below is a case in point. Good stuff from Joachim, but not visible to the author or the world; result, lost insights.
actually, in this case, I did bring this up in the discussion on GitHub; the author was not convinced and brought the proposal forward anyways, so now I am trying to sway the committee instead :-)
Suggestion: could we hold all the committee debase on the proposal thread, thereby allowing the author to chime in if need be? There might be some messages we want to be private -- very well, use the email list for those, but my sense is that 95% are absolutely publishable.
This list is public, do not post private stuff here! It is just a bit “less visible” and less noisy.
Having technical discussions on GitHub is a reasonable thing to do. It will be more noisy, i.e. many people chiming in, but that can of course also be a good thing.
What changes when the shepherd kicks in? Answer: the committee switches from observer (and contribute if you like) mode, to obligation-to-consider mode.
Correct.
Shall we still require mails to the list when
* A proposal was put forward * A shepherd makes a suggestions, and invites the committee to comment (now on GitHub) * The shepherd or the secretary observes consensus, and declares a decision?
(This will actually make my life of assembling the “Status” mails easier, but it will make it harder to determine consensus.)
All in all, I’m up for trying it out!
Cheers, Joachim -- Joachim Breitner mail@joachim-breitner.de http://www.joachim-breitner.de/ _______________________________________________ ghc-steering-committee mailing list ghc-steering-committee@haskell.org https://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-steering-committee
_______________________________________________ ghc-steering-committee mailing list ghc-steering-committee@haskell.org https://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-steering-committee
-- Chris Allen Currently working on http://haskellbook.com

I agree with all of Manuel's points below. I think we can have a more focused discussion on the mailing list -- and this list is archived (and public) for future reference. Richard
On Feb 20, 2018, at 9:23 PM, Manuel M T Chakravarty
wrote: I am sorry, but I am against moving the committee discussion to GitHub. This is for the following reasons:
* I don’t think, we will gain anything by moving to GitHub. Nothing is lost on the email list. The proposal author and anybody else can follow along as this is a public list.
* Proposals have a life cycle: writing, public commenting, refinement, and finally committee discussion (and then it may go around again if the proposal needs to be revised). Having the public, collaborative writing, public commenting, refinement steps on GitHub and the somewhat closed committee decision process on different media makes the mode change very explicit, which is good.
* I get a lot of email from GitHub. Most of it I deleted right away (including most ghc-proposal GitHub messages). Having the committee decision process by email makes it clear when I need to pay attention (without having to consult GitHub ticket labels).
* The Shepard has an incentive to briefly summarise the outcome of the committee discussion on GitHub after the decision is made (if it is all on GitHub, everybody needs to wade though everything).
* On GitHub it is much harder to see which comments are new, especially if the thread is long, because there was already a long community discussion phase.
* The committee discussion may be interleaved with additional public comments, because anybody else can comment, too, at the time, making it even harder to distinguish the committee discussion.
Cheers, Manuel
21.02.2018 00:58 Joachim Breitner
: Hi,
Am Dienstag, den 20.02.2018, 11:19 +0000 schrieb Simon Peyton Jones:
The thread below is a case in point. Good stuff from Joachim, but not visible to the author or the world; result, lost insights.
actually, in this case, I did bring this up in the discussion on GitHub; the author was not convinced and brought the proposal forward anyways, so now I am trying to sway the committee instead :-)
Suggestion: could we hold all the committee debase on the proposal thread, thereby allowing the author to chime in if need be? There might be some messages we want to be private -- very well, use the email list for those, but my sense is that 95% are absolutely publishable.
This list is public, do not post private stuff here! It is just a bit “less visible” and less noisy.
Having technical discussions on GitHub is a reasonable thing to do. It will be more noisy, i.e. many people chiming in, but that can of course also be a good thing.
What changes when the shepherd kicks in? Answer: the committee switches from observer (and contribute if you like) mode, to obligation-to-consider mode.
Correct.
Shall we still require mails to the list when
* A proposal was put forward * A shepherd makes a suggestions, and invites the committee to comment (now on GitHub) * The shepherd or the secretary observes consensus, and declares a decision?
(This will actually make my life of assembling the “Status” mails easier, but it will make it harder to determine consensus.)
All in all, I’m up for trying it out!
Cheers, Joachim -- Joachim Breitner mail@joachim-breitner.de http://www.joachim-breitner.de/ _______________________________________________ ghc-steering-committee mailing list ghc-steering-committee@haskell.org https://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-steering-committee
_______________________________________________ ghc-steering-committee mailing list ghc-steering-committee@haskell.org https://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-steering-committee

I don't feel strongly.
But then I think we should make it clear on the home page https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals that
* What is the committee email address
* That it is publicly readable (but not writable?)
* That authors are strongly encouraged to follow the discussion about their
proposal (during step 5), and use to improve their proposal, even
if it is accepted.
Simon
| -----Original Message-----
| From: ghc-steering-committee [mailto:ghc-steering-committee-
| bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Manuel M T Chakravarty
| Sent: 21 February 2018 02:23
| To: Joachim Breitner

Hi, I see a strong majority for keeping it this way. I updated the section https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals#committee-process with Simon’s input and also generally made it reflect our de-facto process. Cheers, Joachim Am Mittwoch, den 21.02.2018, 09:14 +0000 schrieb Simon Peyton Jones:
I don't feel strongly.
But then I think we should make it clear on the home page https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals that
* What is the committee email address
* That it is publicly readable (but not writable?)
* That authors are strongly encouraged to follow the discussion about their proposal (during step 5), and use to improve their proposal, even if it is accepted.
Simon
-----Original Message----- From: ghc-steering-committee [mailto:ghc-steering-committee- bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Manuel M T Chakravarty Sent: 21 February 2018 02:23 To: Joachim Breitner
Cc: ghc-steering-committee@haskell.org Subject: Re: [ghc-steering-committee] Steering committee discussions I am sorry, but I am against moving the committee discussion to GitHub. This is for the following reasons:
* I don’t think, we will gain anything by moving to GitHub. Nothing is lost on the email list. The proposal author and anybody else can follow along as this is a public list.
* Proposals have a life cycle: writing, public commenting, refinement, and finally committee discussion (and then it may go around again if the proposal needs to be revised). Having the public, collaborative writing, public commenting, refinement steps on GitHub and the somewhat closed committee decision process on different media makes the mode change very explicit, which is good.
* I get a lot of email from GitHub. Most of it I deleted right away (including most ghc-proposal GitHub messages). Having the committee decision process by email makes it clear when I need to pay attention (without having to consult GitHub ticket labels).
* The Shepard has an incentive to briefly summarise the outcome of the committee discussion on GitHub after the decision is made (if it is all on GitHub, everybody needs to wade though everything).
* On GitHub it is much harder to see which comments are new, especially if the thread is long, because there was already a long community discussion phase.
* The committee discussion may be interleaved with additional public comments, because anybody else can comment, too, at the time, making it even harder to distinguish the committee discussion.
Cheers, Manuel
21.02.2018 00:58 Joachim Breitner
: Hi,
Am Dienstag, den 20.02.2018, 11:19 +0000 schrieb Simon Peyton Jones:
The thread below is a case in point. Good stuff from Joachim, but not visible to the author or the world; result, lost insights.
actually, in this case, I did bring this up in the discussion on GitHub; the author was not convinced and brought the proposal forward anyways, so now I am trying to sway the committee instead :-)
Suggestion: could we hold all the committee debase on the proposal thread, thereby allowing the author to chime in if need be? There might be some messages we want to be private -- very well, use the email list for those, but my sense is that 95% are absolutely publishable.
This list is public, do not post private stuff here! It is just a bit “less visible” and less noisy.
Having technical discussions on GitHub is a reasonable thing to do. It will be more noisy, i.e. many people chiming in, but that can of course also be a good thing.
What changes when the shepherd kicks in? Answer: the committee switches from observer (and contribute if you like) mode, to obligation-to-consider mode.
Correct.
Shall we still require mails to the list when
* A proposal was put forward * A shepherd makes a suggestions, and invites the committee to comment (now on GitHub) * The shepherd or the secretary observes consensus, and declares a decision?
(This will actually make my life of assembling the “Status” mails easier, but it will make it harder to determine consensus.)
All in all, I’m up for trying it out!
Cheers, Joachim -- Joachim Breitner mail@joachim-breitner.de http://www.joachim-breitner.de/ _______________________________________________ ghc-steering-committee mailing list ghc-steering-committee@haskell.org https://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-steering- committ ee
_______________________________________________ ghc-steering-committee mailing list ghc-steering-committee@haskell.org https://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-steering- committee
_______________________________________________ ghc-steering-committee mailing list ghc-steering-committee@haskell.org https://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-steering-committee -- Joachim Breitner mail@joachim-breitner.de http://www.joachim-breitner.de/

Great, thanks.
Am 22.02.2018 um 00:54 schrieb Joachim Breitner
: Hi,
I see a strong majority for keeping it this way.
I updated the section https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals#committee-process with Simon’s input and also generally made it reflect our de-facto process.
Cheers, Joachim
Am Mittwoch, den 21.02.2018, 09:14 +0000 schrieb Simon Peyton Jones:
I don't feel strongly.
But then I think we should make it clear on the home page https://github.com/ghc-proposals/ghc-proposals that
* What is the committee email address
* That it is publicly readable (but not writable?)
* That authors are strongly encouraged to follow the discussion about their proposal (during step 5), and use to improve their proposal, even if it is accepted.
Simon
-----Original Message----- From: ghc-steering-committee [mailto:ghc-steering-committee- bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Manuel M T Chakravarty Sent: 21 February 2018 02:23 To: Joachim Breitner
Cc: ghc-steering-committee@haskell.org Subject: Re: [ghc-steering-committee] Steering committee discussions I am sorry, but I am against moving the committee discussion to GitHub. This is for the following reasons:
* I don’t think, we will gain anything by moving to GitHub. Nothing is lost on the email list. The proposal author and anybody else can follow along as this is a public list.
* Proposals have a life cycle: writing, public commenting, refinement, and finally committee discussion (and then it may go around again if the proposal needs to be revised). Having the public, collaborative writing, public commenting, refinement steps on GitHub and the somewhat closed committee decision process on different media makes the mode change very explicit, which is good.
* I get a lot of email from GitHub. Most of it I deleted right away (including most ghc-proposal GitHub messages). Having the committee decision process by email makes it clear when I need to pay attention (without having to consult GitHub ticket labels).
* The Shepard has an incentive to briefly summarise the outcome of the committee discussion on GitHub after the decision is made (if it is all on GitHub, everybody needs to wade though everything).
* On GitHub it is much harder to see which comments are new, especially if the thread is long, because there was already a long community discussion phase.
* The committee discussion may be interleaved with additional public comments, because anybody else can comment, too, at the time, making it even harder to distinguish the committee discussion.
Cheers, Manuel
21.02.2018 00:58 Joachim Breitner
: Hi,
Am Dienstag, den 20.02.2018, 11:19 +0000 schrieb Simon Peyton Jones:
The thread below is a case in point. Good stuff from Joachim, but not visible to the author or the world; result, lost insights.
actually, in this case, I did bring this up in the discussion on GitHub; the author was not convinced and brought the proposal forward anyways, so now I am trying to sway the committee instead :-)
Suggestion: could we hold all the committee debase on the proposal thread, thereby allowing the author to chime in if need be? There might be some messages we want to be private -- very well, use the email list for those, but my sense is that 95% are absolutely publishable.
This list is public, do not post private stuff here! It is just a bit “less visible” and less noisy.
Having technical discussions on GitHub is a reasonable thing to do. It will be more noisy, i.e. many people chiming in, but that can of course also be a good thing.
What changes when the shepherd kicks in? Answer: the committee switches from observer (and contribute if you like) mode, to obligation-to-consider mode.
Correct.
Shall we still require mails to the list when
* A proposal was put forward * A shepherd makes a suggestions, and invites the committee to comment (now on GitHub) * The shepherd or the secretary observes consensus, and declares a decision?
(This will actually make my life of assembling the “Status” mails easier, but it will make it harder to determine consensus.)
All in all, I’m up for trying it out!
Cheers, Joachim -- Joachim Breitner mail@joachim-breitner.de http://www.joachim-breitner.de/ _______________________________________________ ghc-steering-committee mailing list ghc-steering-committee@haskell.org https://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-steering- committ ee
_______________________________________________ ghc-steering-committee mailing list ghc-steering-committee@haskell.org https://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-steering- committee
_______________________________________________ ghc-steering-committee mailing list ghc-steering-committee@haskell.org https://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-steering-committee -- Joachim Breitner mail@joachim-breitner.de http://www.joachim-breitner.de/
ghc-steering-committee mailing list ghc-steering-committee@haskell.org https://mail.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ghc-steering-committee
participants (5)
-
Christopher Allen
-
Joachim Breitner
-
Manuel M T Chakravarty
-
Richard Eisenberg
-
Simon Peyton Jones