Helping to find the usefulness of a proposal

[Joseph D. Darcy]

Neal Gafter wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 3:54 PM, <paul.martin at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Some of this discussion is frustrating. I think that to say that "the list
>> received few serious actual proposals" is unfair, at least in terms of the
>> enthusiasm of the discussions, and in terms of the criticism of the
>> proposals themselves.
>>     
>
> Paul-
>
> Specificity is needed to determine if a proposal is simple enough for
> project Coin.  I didn't bother commenting on proposals that had only a
> hint of a specification.  An RFE - requesting that a problem be solved
> (even if it suggests a direction for the solution) - is far from a
> proposal for a specific solution.  Evaluating an RFE to the needed
> level of detail would require we not just comment on the problem
> space, but evaluate the entire solution space and comment on the best
> of the solutions we can imagine.  The proposer was supposed to do
> that, and describe precisely one selected solution.  I know that is a
> lot of work and may require specialized skills.  That is why the
> readers of a proposal cannot be expected to do it.
>   

Moreover, the set of people currently with these skills is small and it 
would be helpful if this set grew in size.  The Project Coin proposal 
form and other material was intended to give guidance on all that can be 
required as part of the task of growing the Java language so that more 
people can participate now and going forward.  Discussions on the list 
provide a public, archived record of the proposals, their analysis, and 
decision making to better inform current and future discussions.

Certainly merely sending an incomplete proposal to the list should in no 
way be expected to oblige others to undertake the hard task of analyzing 
and completing the work!

-Joe