[MOBY-l] Using bugzilla to continue RFC on Error-handling in MOBY-S

[Frank Gibbons]

Hi,

I've just added a few "bugs" to the bugzilla, to try to preserve the RFC 
momentum built up over the past few weeks. I propose that, although 
bugzilla is perhaps not ideal for this, it is what it is, it is what we 
have, and it will do for now.

I'd like to propose that we try to continue development of this RFC through 
bugzilla (see bug #1863), rather than through the mailing list. Searching 
through old mail messages (or worse still, through the digest, with all of 
its repeated messages and long inclusions) is tedious, and I think 
contributes to the loss in momentum.

So far, in Martin's scheme for RFC-processing, we have (numbers are those 
used in Martin's original suggestion, now available in the codebase as 
Docs/MOBY-S_API/RFC.html)

1. Had a suggestion made by INB to add this features. It was added to 
bugzilla, No. 1863
2. Suggested to resolve it by today (Sep-15)
3. Martin backed up the RFC
4. I think we have the resources to make this change - it seems an 
essential part of a robust API, which version 1.0 should be.
5a. List members have exchanged several comments back and forth, resulting 
in amended versions of the RFC being posted to the mailing list.
5b. We've also gotten a little side-tracked by the related articleName problem.

So it seems to me that it's time to vote on it (step 6 of the Senger 
seven-step scheme ;-). Martin suggested that Mark would ask a limited 
number of people to vote on it after the resolution date (today). I guess 
those people would self-select, or maybe Mark will select them. They will 
be requested to make a one-year commitment.

After that comes step 7, the "fun part": implementation, documentation.

We're pretty close to reaching a conclusion on this. The fact is that even 
if we do nothing, people want this functionality, and they WILL implement 
it. It is in everybody's interest that we have a specification for what the 
functionality should be. It may change over time, but I think there has 
been enough back-and-forth that we have a reasonable first draft, and 
should vote on it.

-Frank
P.S. Of course, this message, along with version 1.7.1 of the RFC is 
attached to the bug on bugzilla

PhD, Computational Biologist,
Harvard Medical School BCMP/SGM-322, 250 Longwood Ave, Boston MA 02115, USA.
Tel: 617-432-3555       Fax: 
617-432-3557       http://llama.med.harvard.edu/~fgibbons