# Nushell core team meeting 2022-11-02

## Attendees

- Jakub
- JT
- Michael
- Reilly
- Darren
- Stefan
- Fernando
- Dan
- The public listening on discord

## Agenda

- Public meeting schedule?
- 15 min's on the clock for PRs
- How to proceed with the indexing commands? (tables from [dandavision](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6893#issuecomment-1294947581) and [webbedspace](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Hd6rdMKH1a-ttLsilvFZ0x_Mya7e3aGYBDtSEC6piDI/))
--> JT will take a look
- Overloading:
- Related: input/output type draft from Dan: https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6796
- Introduces a mapping: depending on input different output
- Overloading in terms of vectorisation/selection
- But a runtime challenge (some stuff will appear as Any atm)
- Document from Jakub: https://hackmd.io/@nucore/Skt0PGjVj/edit
- allowing input output type annotations for custom commands with new syntax
- Callsite overloading (dynamic but add a manual type enforcement at call site like Rust turbofish)
- Question of dynamic dispatch
- input `$in` is `PipelineData` instead of `Value` and supports lazy iteration and POSIX streams.
- Action item for all: read through the document
- good starting point to experiment with syntax into the new parser
- Plugins:
- We want to trim the # of commands shipped with Nushell. Need better plugin functionality to move things out of core. Ex: dataframes
- Better core compiletimes/smaller binary
- Thinking about a `install dataframe` command
- Good example how simple `julia` or `R` handle plugin/package installation
- how to persist safely. (see abi stability below and package/folder management)
- Update on libloading/abi_stable experiment
- Open question: ABI compatibility/versioning
- `#[repr(C)]` would be the stable but hard path to go
- reprC would open up other languages for core plugins with internal data performance (currently `value` is the abstraction instead of `PipelineData` -> not lazy)
- A lot of additional macro magic (in [cglue](https://github.com/h33p/cglue) or [safer_ffi](https://github.com/getditto/safer_ffi/))
- Get's us dll/.so loading
- Feedback from Dan Gohman (creator of cranelift) on using wasm
- Also language agnostic
- Going back and forth across process boundaries works if you serialize... or if you're working across a C ABI... not really an improvement over libloading :)
- Feels experimental. Not an obvious win
- [New parser / typechecker](https://github.com/jntrnr/nu_parser2)
- Making progress, needs more help
- Goal also get `match`
- Checkout the checklist
- Sideshow: error handling (minimal implementation from JT vs miette as in current nushell)
- Action item: jump in and ask JT if you get stuck

- RFC (or similar) procedure to stay more focused with PRs
- [Our RFC repo](https://github.com/nushell/rfcs) got dormant 2 years ago
- We might had to reject some cool PRs that didn't fit in the current road map.
- Could we get a light weight alternative
- for small breaking changes make sure to get buy in from a set of frequent/experienced devs
- Discord,
- also announce what is hot on the inofficial roadmap
- Status update channel
- project board is stale

- Question from Adam: is there a plan to simplify/consolidate commands that have grown organically?
- [webbedspace has been looking at commands](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Hd6rdMKH1a-ttLsilvFZ0x_Mya7e3aGYBDtSEC6piDI/edit#gid=0)
- Important problem as we aim for 1.0
- Dan: Don't want to burn out focusing on many small changes if what we need is a larger/holistic review. Nu 1.0 will be judged on consistency
- Get a consensus on guidance how nushell should feel and behave should drive how we update the commands in a idiomatic way
- Discussions resulting from the approval process for active command changes
- Language reference? > dev documentation: how do I write a command
- Inspect the global command spreadsheet
- mimic/compare to core commands of another language to see rough edges
- see Dan's table in https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6893#issuecomment-1294947581
> -> Action item: it is our current goal:
> Standardize our commands/semantics/ get the input output types right. Polish the organically grown stuff.

# Discussed Topics

## Discussed PR's

- [6796](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6796) Suggestion: input and output syntax shapes (@dandavison)
- Input output shapes
- We are moving away from type directed parsing (in the parser the types are known as `SyntaxShape`)
- WIP in progress but are getting there
- Has to affect all commands
- Additional assertions in the tests based on the Input Output Types
- We need to have the ability to subtype: `Int/Float: Numeric`
- General consensus: get this moving in (even though we haven't moved yet from SyntaxShape)
- Moving from Draft as soon as tests pass
- Maybe worth plan time in the next meeting to resolve any open issues
- Follow up: help text format
- [6798](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6798) Skip parsing named flags when not specified (@Yesterday17)
- Dangerous because if you mistype a flag you get no help, and it will be treated as a positional arg
- Conclusion: reject
- Maybe accept unknown flags even though the custom completion definition doesn't know about them
- Rest flags
- Maybe revisit with the general parser rewrite
- [6799](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6799) fix: fixcd (@Decodetalkers)
- Getting close
- Unix checks the x bit
- windows
- [6806](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6806) Protocol: debug_assert!() Span to reflect a valid slice (@dbuch)
- Waiting on virtualenv tests passing
- [6809](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6809) Add column completion support (@nibon7)
- [6893](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6893) make `take` behave like `first` (@WindSoilder)
- Dan and webbedspace have put together summaries
- JT to follow up
- [6898](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6898) prevent error when `lines` reads bad bytes (@merelymyself)
- Stefan thinks it should operate on bytes instead of converting to strings in a lossy fashion
- JT: if lines fails to decode, should give an error telling the user to manually decode
- Better error message would be the nushell way

## PR list

`gh pr list --json url,number,author,title | from json | each {|i| $"- [($i.number)]\(($i.url)\) ($i.title) \(@($i.author.login)\)"} | reverse | to text`

### Not yet discussed (will either be resolved on them or scheduled next week)
- [6885](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6885) [WIP] table: Change Record view in expand-mode (@zhiburt)
- [6896](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6896) Fix ignore-errors for select (@nibon7)
- [6910](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6910) Make `seq` return a `ListStream` where possible. (@merelymyself)
- [6915](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6915) New "display_output" hook. (@PerBothner)
- [6938](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6938) removes unused features. (@FilipAndersson245)
- [6958](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6958) Add --ignore-program-errors option to do command (@SUPERCILEX)
- [6966](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6966) Refactor ansi stripping into `nu-util` functions (@sholderbach)
- [6975](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6975) Improve do command docs (@SUPERCILEX)
- [6976](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6976) Fixed $in in `where` blocks (@webbedspace)
- [6983](https://github.com/nushell/nushell/pull/6983) Grouped config commands better (closes #6911) (@webbedspace)