Ulf: Future of Agda

Ulf's job running out at the end of year. Grant app result on November.

Few other ppl know and can work e.g. Nisse, Andreas, Makoto, ...

Thorsten: Maybe a good time to reimplement Agda.

Ulf: Manpower problem

Th: Only Ulf knowing the detail is more expensive in medium term...

JP: The code is not that bad.

Andreas: re-implementation always promising just getting back where we were in 2years Bengt: Not true. We do have a better agda. Don't be too pesimistic. (re Ulf too)

Conor: On a positive note. Agda at a cross road.

Decide to fail, or, try to be successful in the already existing comm with Agda-habit. Compilation!

Th: We should take advantage of having ppl who know Haskell and Agda.

Difficult to get funding for maintaining software. Need to pretend a blue-sky research

Bengt: It _is_ a blue-sky research, just different from writing papers.

Matter of how to describe.

Andreass: There are a lot of publishable issues re Agda implementation. JP: (Chalmers situation.) Peter's new student., Nisse,. Nisse: Strathclyde activities? Conor: No piece of code lasts more than 6 mo.(in Epigram 2)

Th: This is more like a funeral...

JP: More open process for development, Public review of patches, etc. Bengt: There' danger about it.. JP: The goal is more ppl start reading rather than writing just now.

Nisse: IRC shows some ppl tried and gave up, don't know why

Andreas: For Twelf, Frank Pfenning is writing all the pre/post conditions etc. for each function.

Novice developer needs such security

Th: Last AIM's 'quoteGoal' was done by Ulf showing how to Th, and that was a non-trivial process. Needs those things are documented.

JP: We should be insisting on commenting code, recording Ulf's wisdom.

Conor: I suggest Complete ban on Ulf implementing Agda! New features should be implemented by somebody else; then more ppl start learning the code.

an:XXX

Conor: Recollection of AIM1... Catarina giving several lectures and then a lot of ppl working on the internal... Maybe that style could be revived...

Ulf: Summarising

Th: About indoctrinating Phd students. Ulf saw Agda1, was too complicated, started writing Agda-Light, ...

... More and more ppl worldwide are using Agda... It would be a scandal if Ulf doesn't get a job at Chalmers after this sort of success.

Try to encourage students to become a heroe of Type Theory like Ulf.

Conor: ICFP this year has noticeable Agda presence.

Andreas: Over three hundred issues in tracker.

Ulf: Important thing is to get more ppl involved

JP: Documenting and Commenting. Public patch submission/review.

Nisse: Agda-mailing list can be used.

Conor: Attraction more valuable than revulsion. If it becomes necessary(too much dev traffic/chatting), fork off a new mailing list.

XX, U-Penn, Iowa ppl could study the Agda code before re-implementing.

JP: Can I send the patch to Agda-mailing list? Nisse: Sure.

Conor: The right kind of traffic on Agda list would XXX

Summary:

Th:

Nisse could be the chief maintainer of Agda (in case Ulf's gone)

Hope to recruite more ppl get involved and inpart more knowledge about the code published.

Make the dev process more public. Use Agda-mailing list for this purpose too. If a problem occurs, fork-off.

JP:

Overview of the code structure on the Wiki 'How to add X' etc.

Th:

Ulf giving a public lecture on 'How to XXX Agda". Next AIM.

Conor: it has to be combined with a sprint, otherwise ppl just forget.