platforms problems

[Moritz Lenz]

Am 03.08.2012 15:42, schrieb Jimmy Zhuo:
>> The failing tests are not even threading related. They test callback
>> functionality of the NCI interface. The reason for them to fail in the
> threads
>> branch is that I changed the implementation of sleep() to use the timer
>> thread.
> Well, rakudo doesn't use the NCI interface of Parrot. I wonder who else uses
> parrot's nci interface on *BSD systems(or on linux/windows). I don't know
> why it can't be marked as 'todo' test.

I don't think that's what Patrick wanted to express. He just wanted to 
know what the implication was for our users on that platform.

> And I can't understand why it's a
> blocker too. Could someone explain it?

There's a very fundamental question underneath: If you declare that you 
support a platform, you don't just TODO failing tests for it when 
introducing a mostly unrelated feature. If you do, the support for the 
platform is second class, ie you don't care about that platform as much 
as about Linux.

Again I'm sure that Patrick's email wasn't meant as criticizing the 
proposal(*), just wanting to understand what it means -- if it means 
that *BSD drops into the "second class" support category (I'm not sure 
if we care that much about PowerPC Mac platforms, they are dying out. 
*BSD are not dying), or stop being supported, of if neither of those, 
what exactly is going on.

Everyone, please try not to be defensive, we didn't mean to be 
offensive. We just want to understand the implications.

Cheers,
Moritz

(*) we understand very well how it feels to be on an understaffed, 
volunteer-driven project. There's so much to do in Rakduo Perl 6 land 
that, even though we have a decent number of regular contributors, we 
are still understaffed.