more 2018 minutes (March, June, September)

Author: SethTisue

2018-06-19-june-19-2018.pdf

@@ -242,7 +242,7 @@ bringing interested parties to the table and facilitating
 communication.  Adriaan suggested that perhaps the automatic
 code-rewriting tool (that Martin has long advocated creating) could be
 a Scala Center project.  He and Martin discussed whether that tool
-should use scala.meta.  Martin thought that could depend in part on
+should use Scalameta.  Martin thought that could depend in part on
 Eugene Burmako's plans.
 
 **Outcome:** The board voted; all were in favor.  Jonathan and Tim

minutes/_posts/2016-06-06-may-9-2016.md

@@ -289,7 +289,7 @@ the main limitation of spores is around transitivity -- if an
 enclosing scope in turn captures something else.  Proper transitivity
 checking needs a compiler plugin; macros aren't enough.  "I would go
 with a compiler plugin," she said.  Another possible solution path
-would be to use Scala.meta's macro annotations, but it's unclear if
+would be to use Scalameta's macro annotations, but it's unclear if
 that's the right path.  There was some further discussion of technical
 details between Raúl, Stu, Heather, Jakob, et al.
 
@@ -388,12 +388,12 @@ area of macro support."
 
 Martin: "macros are still experimental" and "nobody's very happy" with
 the current API, so it would really be better to put the energy into
-Scala.meta and have everyone support that.  Scala.meta is also "the
+Scalameta and have everyone support that.  Scalameta is also "the
 most important" thing we need for "smooth migration from Scala 2 to
 Dotty".
 
 So, it sounds like there could be interest in a proposal centered
-on Scala.meta.
+on Scalameta.
 
 #### Support for sbt development
 

minutes/_posts/2016-08-09-august-9-2016.md

@@ -113,7 +113,7 @@ Main areas of progress since the last meeting:
 * Ólafur released a first version of Scalafix, a tool for migrating
   Scala code to new versions of the language, including Dotty; see
   [blog post](http://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2016/10/24/scalafix.html).
-  This work has also involved contributing to Scala.meta.
+  This work has also involved contributing to Scalameta.
 * Julien released scalajs-bundler, a new sbt plugin making it easy to
   use NPM dependencies in a Scala.js project; see
   [blog post](http://www.scala-lang.org/blog/2016/10/19/scalajs-bundler.html).

minutes/_posts/2016-11-30-november-30-2016.md

@@ -0,0 +1,254 @@
+---
+layout: contact
+---
+
+# Minutes of the 8th meeting of the Scala Center, Q1 2018
+
+Minutes are [archived](https://scala.epfl.ch/records.html) on the
+Scala Center website.
+
+## Summary
+
+The following agenda was distributed to attendees:
+[agenda](https://github.com/scalacenter/advisoryboard/blob/master/agendas/008-2018-q1.md).
+
+Scala Center activities for the past quarter focused on MOOCs,
+scalajs-bundler, collections, Build Server Protocol (BSP), Scala
+Native tooling API, Scala Platform Process (SPP), Scala Improvement
+Process (SIP), Scala compiler performance and profiling, Zinc,
+Scalameta, Scalafix, and Scala Days program organization.
+
+Full details on these activities are in
+[Heather's report](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BT_FZyFC90ShyfhwfdSq_NlXIVT_eXHYip3bl8LD6Sw/edit?usp=sharing).
+
+Other topics discussed at the meeting included macros, governance,
+Scala 3, and the planned Scala contributors summit in Berlin.
+
+Two new proposals were made:
+
+* [SCP-016](https://github.com/scalacenter/advisoryboard/blob/master/proposals/016-verbal-descriptions.md): Accessible Scala (community)
+    * voted on and accepted
+* [SCP-017](https://github.com/scalacenter/advisoryboard/blob/master/proposals/017-lsp-stp-wg-support.md): Support for LSP and STP Working Groups (Twitter)
+    * voted on and accepted
+
+## Date, Time and Location
+
+The meeting took place virtually, via Google Meet, at 4:00pm
+(UTC) on Friday, March 16, 2018.
+
+Minutes were taken by Seth Tisue (secretary).
+
+## Attendees
+
+### Attendees present
+
+Board members:
+
+- James Belsey, Morgan Stanley
+- Francisco Díaz, 47 Degrees (filling in for Raúl Raja Martínez)
+- Thomas Gawlitza, SAP
+- Stu Hood, Twitter
+- Lars Hupel, community/Typelevel
+- Adriaan Moors, Lightbend
+- Frederick Reiss, IBM
+- Haripriya Srinivasaraghavan, Verizon
+- Arnaud Payement, Goldman Sachs (filling in for Jonathan Perry)
+- Bill Venners, community/Artima
+
+Also:
+
+- Rui Batista, e.near
+- Eugene Burmako, Twitter
+
+Officers:
+
+- Heather Miller (director), EPFL
+- Jon Pretty (chairperson), Propensive
+- Martin Odersky (technical advisor), EPFL
+- Seth Tisue (secretary), Lightbend
+
+## Proceedings
+
+As chairperson, Jon Pretty conducted the meeting.
+
+### Activities
+
+As Executive Director, Heather Miller summarized Scala Center
+activities since the last meeting.
+
+Most of Heather's remarks were based on her
+[detailed report](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BT_FZyFC90ShyfhwfdSq_NlXIVT_eXHYip3bl8LD6Sw/edit?usp=sharing)
+on the Center's recent activities.
+
+The following notes are a supplement to Heather's report.
+
+Seth asked whether there's any prospect of the Dotty "Principled Meta
+Programming" effort, which has replaced the Scala Center's previous
+portable-macros effort, ever being backported to Scala 2.  Martin said
+it's Scala 3 only.  The recommended migration strategy is for macro
+authors to port their macros to the new system for Scala 3.  Jon
+suggested that a blog post be published explaining this further.  Seth
+praised the clarity of the new situation; the community had been
+worried about having to rewrite their macros twice, once before Scala
+3, and once after.
+
+Lars asked if we're voting on the portable-macros effort being
+dropped; the answer's no. James asked about the process involved, for
+the board, in abandoning an approved proposal.  That's not clear, but
+since no one is actually objecting, we didn't pursue that question
+further.  Adriaan suggested that requesting a vote, and/or submitting
+a followup proposal, both seem like plausible routes, should such a
+situation arise in the future.
+
+### Financial report
+
+Verizon is leaving the board after this quarter.  Other than that, the
+Center's financial situation remains unchanged since last quarter.
+
+### Proposals
+
+#### SCP-016: Accessible Scala
+
+Proposed by Bill Venners and Lars Hupel on behalf of the FLOSS community.
+
+The proposal was written by Sam Halliday, with input from Jon Pretty
+and Rui Batista.
+
+See the
+[proposal text](https://github.com/scalacenter/advisoryboard/blob/master/proposals/016-verbal-descriptions.md)
+for details.
+
+Jon summarized the proposal for the board, and Rui Batista, a guest
+at the meeting, explained how work on this would benefit him and other
+Scala developers who are blind or partially-sighted.
+
+Rui emphasized that there is an opportunity here to leverage Scala's
+rich type system, as well of Scalameta's understanding of types, to
+aid blind developers much more than existing systems for other
+programming languages can do.
+
+Jon mentioned that there is some existing work on GitHub, by a user
+named Maxwell, that could give the effort a head start.
+
+Heather addressed the issue of staffing.  She thinks the required
+effort level is modest enough that the Center could reasonably fit it
+in, and that Guillaume Massé would be a suitable engineer.
+
+Lars asked Rui if he could estimate how much this tool might actually
+speed his coding work up.  Rui declined to name a number, but offered
+that the most dramatic speedup would come from an "outline" or
+"overview" mode, that used its knowledge of code structure to avoid
+having to read the entire file out loud.
+
+**Voting**: all in favor, none opposed, no abstentions. The proposal
+is accepted.
+
+#### SCP-017: Support for LSP and STP Working Groups (Twitter)
+
+Proposed by Stu Hood and Eugene Burmako (Twitter).
+
+See the
+[proposal text](https://github.com/scalacenter/advisoryboard/blob/master/proposals/017-lsp-stp-wg-support.md)
+for details.
+
+Eugene presented the proposal to the board. Jon and Heather discussed
+the nature of the support that the Scala Center could provide to the
+working groups; the proposal deliberately leaves that rather open.
+Heather said that Jorge and Ólafur (but Jorge especially) would be the
+engineers most involved.
+
+Bill and James were unclear on the costs involved. Jon clarified that
+the "Costs" section refers to *other* costs besides developer
+effort.
+
+But apart from that, Bill thought the effort level proposed seemed
+surprisingly high.  Heather and Eugene clarified that the effort level
+would involve some engineering work as well as just participating in
+discussions.  Eugene described 5 developer days/week as only "a start"
+at what it might take to tackle a problem this big.
+
+James suggested that the board not commit to supporting a whole year
+of that effort level, but reevaluate by re-voting in six months.  Stu
+thought that sounded fine, and there were no objections from the rest
+of the board, so that's the version of the proposal Jon put a vote.
+
+Seth asked, at this point, whether Bloop work is covered by this
+proposal.
+
+Heather acknowledged that she isn't sure yet about Bloop's "niche",
+but she thinks that any work that happens on Bloop can be "repurposed"
+if necessary, depending on what the STP working group decides.
+
+Also, Stu had asked, earlier in the meeting, for clarification on the
+goals of Bloop.  Will users be confused by having a third tool
+involved, in addition to their IDE and their build tool?  The success
+of Bloop could depend on really good integration that smooths that
+over.  Further discussion on this will occur in the working groups
+themselves, of course.  Jon suspects that although Bloop currently has
+its own "branding", it could end up "integrated" into something else.
+
+Jon described the working groups as, in part, an "experiment" to see
+whether "this approach to decision making" works.  Yes, some early
+work on Bloop happened without much guidance from the board or the
+groups, but if the groups are established, the work would continue in
+that context.
+
+Bill and Heather returned to the question of effort level -- does
+the Center have enough engineers to do this?  As usual, accepted
+proposals are recommendations, not commands; Heather thinks effort
+levels on various projects can be adjusted as needed.
+
+**Voting**: all in favor, none opposed, no abstentions. The proposal
+is accepted.
+
+### Other business
+
+Bill didn't have any community feedback to relay. Lars had to leave
+the meeting early.
+
+Jon re-raised the governance question about the portable macros
+effort.  Heather proposed that the advisory board meetings are the
+right venue to re-discuss and perhaps re-vote when something like this
+occurs.  Stu observed that the Center doesn't control the Dotty team;
+external circumstances can change.  James thought "what we have is
+fine", probably.  Three months can be a long cycle, but the advisory
+board mailing list exists when communication needs to happen faster,
+for example in the monthly updates sent there.  There seemed to be
+general agreement that monthly is fast enough.
+
+Jon observes that there tends to be a flurry of activity immediately
+before meetings, which doesn't leave much time for thought and
+discussion ahead of time.  The communication of the decision on macros
+was an example of this.  We should try to break out of that pattern if
+we can.  Perhaps by setting a proposal deadline longer before the
+meeting?  But then what about counterproposals?  It's unclear how to
+handle this.
+
+Stu asked if there are forums the Scala Center uses for discussion
+that board members could join as well, in addition to following GitHub
+issues.  Heather said that some board members are restricted to email
+for regulatory reasons, so it's not obvious what technology to use.
+No conclusion on this was reached.
+
+Martin shared plans for Scala 3: "it should come out shortly after
+Scala 2.14."  Eugene asked about migration, especially macros.  Martin
+mentioned Scalafix, and said it needs to be "accelerated" for Scala 3
+migration purposes.  Macros are the "biggest worry", so the team needs
+to take "controlled steps" in this area and not be "overly ambitious".
+By the end of 2018 the story there should be clearer.  The Lightbend
+team will focus on the 2.14 release, which will be "the best version
+they can make to enable the migration".  The two teams will "work
+from both sides" to make it happen and provide migration paths.
+
+Heather announced that she is organizing a contributors summit after
+Scala Days Berlin in June, to bring together people working on Scala
+compilers, tooling, and libraries for roundtable discussions.  The
+format will be based on the Go contributors summit.
+
+### Conclusion
+
+Planning of next meeting, can we have it at Scala Days NYC in June?
+Most board members will be present, so we can have the meeting in
+person, and anyone who can't make it can still attend remotely.  James
+Belsey suggested meeting at Morgan Stanley's offices, so that's the
+tentative plan.