[J3] [EXTERNAL] Re: notice and agenda posted

[Ondřej Čertík]

Hi Van,

On Fri, Sep 13, 2019, at 6:27 PM, Van Snyder via J3 wrote:
> On Wed, 2019-09-04 at 01:31 -0700, Robert Corbett via J3 wrote:
> > I agree that we should keep a running list of proposed features for
> > Fortran 202y.  I do not think that the committee as a whole should
> > spend much time working on such features, but interested subgroups
> > could work on them.  Because meeting time is a scarce resource, I
> > suggest that the interested parties refine the proposals using e-mail.
> > 
> > I do not see how we can develop some of the larger proposals using
> > only meeting time.  A subgroup might spend a lot of time working on
> > requirements and specifications for a proposal the committee
> > eventually rejects.  That has happened with proposals developed using
> > meeting time.
> 
> We should have a standing document that describes all projects we
> believe are good ideas, but that are delayed because they don't fit the
> current schedule.

I 100% agree. And we now have such a "standing document", in a form of issues, and you can sort them by popularity:

https://github.com/j3-fortran/fortran_proposals/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+sort%3Areactions-%2B1-desc

Those are the good ideas that people gave +1 that they think we should do.

It is a "running list of proposed features for Fortran 202y" (and I would say even further down than 2020y). I view this list as "good ideas", and when they become ready, we will propose them.

> There have been numerous "good idea" projects repeatedly proposed but
> not implemented because they couldn't be fit into the schedule.
> 
> Rather than dropping these kinds of projects, proposing them again,
> agreeing they're good ideas, scraping them off the schedule, proposing
> them again, agreeing they're good ideas, scraping them off the
> schedule, ... we should keep track of them, and if development is done,
> that should be retained.

I agree. That is precisely the motivation behind the https://github.com/j3-fortran/fortran_proposals repository.

> 
> A list of titles, or one-sentence descriptions, or one-paragraph
> descriptions, is not enough.

I agree. In the above repository, if you click on a given issue, you can see all the discussion, as well as sometimes a draft of a proposal. In other words, the latest status of the work on a given issue.

We are now in the process of writing proposals for the top issues for the February meeting, you can follow our progress at:

https://github.com/j3-fortran/fortran_proposals/issues/122

> The "standing document" that remembers these projects might be a
> collection of documents, one for each well-developed proposal.

I agree. In the above repository each "idea" has its own issue.

I invite anybody from the J3 committee to participate there. There are about 7 members who have already commented there (Steve, Tom, Bill, Zach, Gary, Vipul, myself --- I hope I didn't forget about anybody). And we have very good participation of the wide Fortran community there.

Ondrej