[meta] Add a Prior Art section to the RFC template - #243
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I never thought about an approach like this, but I could see it being widely used across future RFCs. |
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Supportive of us adding this. We should also include a point about the existing language design being a key piece of prior art. For example if we introduced a new global called |
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are there any examples of other projects which have this as part of their RFC process? /j
i am in support of this idea, but i think we could probably deliberate a bit over the organization and reading flow
| ## Prior Art | ||
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| * Do other programming languages have similar features? What do those look like? How do they compare and contrast to this design? | ||
| * What supporting features do those languages have that might _not_ be included in this design? |
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i think "supporting features" should be defined better or replaced with "related features" so that people are less likely to take mental shortcuts (maybe?)
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| * Do other programming languages have similar features? What do those look like? How do they compare and contrast to this design? | ||
| * What supporting features do those languages have that might _not_ be included in this design? | ||
| * Are there other similar features or libraries in Luau already? How does this feature align with _those_ features in terms of naming, syntax, and semantics? |
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naming, syntax, and semantics
i would replace with "naming, syntax, or semantics" or "naming, syntax, and/or semantics"
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| ## Prior Art | ||
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| * Do other programming languages have similar features? What do those look like? How do they compare and contrast to this design? |
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"How do they compare and contrast to this design" might invite very shallow comparisons especially so late into the body. Maybe it'd be better to include this section below Motivation, above Design, and rework the wording to something along the lines of "What design considerations are unique to luau or that feature which are different here?" That way we flow from Motivation -> Similar Designs + Declaring Unique Constraints -> Design
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| ## Prior Art | ||
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| * Do other programming languages have similar features? What do those look like? How do they compare and contrast to this design? |
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Do other programming languages
I'd be tempted to change this to "other software projects", prior art can come from almost anywhere
| ## Prior Art | ||
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| * Do other programming languages have similar features? What do those look like? How do they compare and contrast to this design? | ||
| * What supporting features do those languages have that might _not_ be included in this design? |
Like most engineering, language design heavily benefits from looking at prior art, and the vast majority of language features have prior art in a widely used programming language:
whileloop in Luau and one in JavaScript work roughly the same.#sigil to meanprivate.This can also apply to prior art for library functions. If we're adding a new
mathfunction, do other languages standard libraries have the same functions? The same constants?This is worth adding a section to push all RFC writers in the right direction.