| 00:31 | <ljharb> | (not that i think this is worth trying to change the process doc) but i think what's actually pretty intuitive and commonly believed is that "stage -1" is the thing with no criteria, and stage 0 does in fact have some criteria. a large percentage of the community ideas in esdiscuss and the discourse describe their thing as "stage -1" |
| 00:32 | <ljharb> | (perhaps because in JS, 0 is the first thing, and -1 is a nonexistent thing, so things that aren't a thing shouldn't have 0, they should have -1) |
| 16:13 | <littledan> | well, let's see if we can come to a common answer here; actively disagreeing within the committee just leaves things confusing. |
| 16:13 | <littledan> | from my perspective, both answers are potentially valid, we just need a convention |
| 16:14 | <littledan> | (this poll is of course non-binding/inconclusive, just to get a temperature) |
| 17:10 | <Rob Palmer> | Reminder: The next plenary meeting is in 6 weeks time! Please complete the sign-up form if you will attend in-person in Seattle. |
| 18:38 | <ljharb> | i mean per the process document it's objectively stage zero that has no entrance criteria :-) |
| 18:38 | <ljharb> | i'm talking about the general mental model outside the committee, which we probably can't poll the committee to confirm |
| 18:44 | <Chris de Almeida> | I don't think codifying further (including defining stage -1 vs stage 0, etc) would add any notable value |
| 19:06 | <littledan> | seems like we have some degree of consensus on this definition |
| 20:44 | <Jan Olaf Martin> | IIRC there is the entrance criteria of "a delegate is interested in this" which may be a meaningful difference to -1? (see phrasing around "TC39 champion" in https://github.com/tc39/proposals/blob/main/stage-0-proposals.md) |
| 20:44 | <Jan Olaf Martin> | (Not suggesting that this makes it worth defining a stage -1 more formally.) |
| 20:49 | <ljharb> | Ooh that actually is a good point |
| 20:50 | <ljharb> | And how better for a delegate to express interest than agreeing to be a champion |
| 20:50 | <ljharb> | (Altho to be clear the proposals list wording there is my prose, not the process document’s) |
| 20:50 | <Chris de Almeida> | those are criteria to be listed there, not to be referred to as stage 0 |
| 20:50 | <Chris de Almeida> | which is all reasonable |
| 20:52 | <Jan Olaf Martin> | You could call "stage -1" the "unlisted & unscheduled stage 0 proposals". But to me that just falls out of the scope where "stage" has meaning. |
| 20:53 | <ljharb> | Yes and in practice that’s what “stage -1” means - a stage 0 proposal that doesn’t meet the listing criteria |
| 20:53 | <Jan Olaf Martin> | "Unstaged proposal" |
| 20:53 | <ljharb> | There’s a qualitative difference between “someone has an idea” and “the committee will hear the idea” |
| 20:53 | <ljharb> | The current stage 0 doesn’t represent that. |
| 20:53 | <ljharb> | Which is fine, but it’s why people use “stage -1” |
| 20:58 | <Jan Olaf Martin> | What I think confuses some people in the community is that difference: Just because stage 0 doesn't have entry criteria, doesn't mean their random idea / Github repo is a "real" stage 0 thing that will be looked at by anybody from TC39. It's obvious if you know about ECMA and how TC39 operates but not necessarily to the average web developer. |
| 20:58 | <Chris de Almeida> | my koan above, while tongue-in-cheek -- was actually intended to express something |
| 20:58 | <Chris de Almeida> | which is that stage 0 is not actually a stage |
| 20:59 | <Chris de Almeida> | and to that end, a distinction between stage -1 and 0 is virtually meaningless |
| 21:01 | <Chris de Almeida> | if the difference between "idea" and "committee will hear the idea" is that important, I'd rather it be designated as 0.1 or something rather than move the goalposts |
| 22:02 | <Michael Ficarra> | if the difference between "idea" and "committee will hear the idea" is that important, I'd rather it be designated as |
| 22:06 | <Jan Olaf Martin> | stage 0.30000000000000004? |
| 22:58 | <shu> | is this conversation real |
| 23:06 | <James M Snell> | Stage 3i ? |
| 23:07 | <shu> | this was real not in the number sense but in the "are you fr" |
| 23:08 | <littledan> | "the magnitude of the proposal is 3, but it seems to be going sideways" (that's 3i) |
| 23:43 | <Rob Palmer> | This place is not the Temporal Dead Zone... |
| 23:44 | <ljharb> | many people already subjectively intuit it has a meaning, which means it's objectively meaningful |
| 23:52 | <Chris de Almeida> | lest we conflate subjective perceptions with objective meaning |
| 23:54 | <ljharb> | i'm not sure how to define "meaning" in a way that doesn't base it on subjective perceptions |
| 23:54 | <Chris de Almeida> | having definitions for terms is a start |