Re: Slowing down new features

[Timothy <tecosaur@gmail.com>]

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Hi Tim,

> This is all beginning to feel like we are running very close to the
> tipping point at which time we will have something that is so complex
> that only a very few people are able to maintain the code base and keep
> the system stable. New maintainers are discouraged because of the code
> complexity. We could end up in a position where really important issues
> cannot be addressed or addressed in a timely manner because of the
> overall complexity of the code base and time it takes to fix and test
> and dependence on a very few number of maintainers who are already
> swamped with work.
>
> At some point, I think we may want to consider a temporary freeze on new
> functionality and spend a few months just focusing on bug fixes and code
> base improvements or re-factoring. It might also be worthwhile providing
> some guidelines or criteria/procedures for assessing proposed new
> features to avoid a perception of new features being accepted/rejected
> based on personality, loudness of voice or some other real or perceived
> and irrelevant basis.

I’ve got some changes that improve existing features that I know I’d like to
push (and would be happy to maintain), but I get the same feeling as you that
overall that we’ve been working on a lot of new things and it would be worth
taking some time to refine what’s here instead of adding more.

That said, I’m not sure a hard freeze would be the best way to approach this,
I’d be more of a fan of just a shift in focus and maybe deferring some ideas to
be considered later.

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FWIW, these are the new things I’d like to push:
• ob-julia
• inline src block fortification
• smart generated export preamble
• a new LaTeX src block syntax highlighting option (this actually isn’t that
  much code)

These are all currently maturing in my config, and in particular the “smart
generated export preamble” and new LaTeX syntax highlighting option have been
massaged into a state I’m very happy with over a number of months.

All the best,
*Timothy*