Governance is not only about the current state but also about shaping the future, as it ultimately makes decisions that define the project’s direction. That said, I agree that this might be somewhat out of place in the current context.
I don’t fully agree that the solution is simply to create more materials. In fact, I believe the opposite is true — the materials will come naturally once there’s a centralized place for creative contributors to share and develop them.
For example, some might remember the Doggo Dot JL YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@doggodotjl). I still don’t know who was running it, yet they created videos about my packages completely on their own. This shows that creative contributors will produce materials spontaneously — as long as they have access to clear, centralized information (the person used our documentation and examples). You should not underestimate the amount of creative people who want to do videos, but they need a source of information to do them!
I was not trying to suggest that PEP actually announcing those plans. PEP is a reference to a good working model of organization. PEP does provide is a structured, central space for ideas and directions. A single No GIL PEP generated hundreds of YouTube videos, blog posts, and podcasts. That happened organically because people had one clear source to refer to. I will repeat, but I don’t think the goal should be to produce more scattered materials when the real issue is that the existing information is fragmented. If we bring everything together in one place, it becomes much easier to see which ideas are gaining traction and what directions are being explored.
Right now, some discussions happen on GitHub issues, others on YouTube or HackMD, and it’s nearly impossible to get a coherent overview.
A centralized process would:
(a) make it clear what’s currently on the table,
(b) make it easier to assess which ideas are getting attention, and
(c) make it simpler to infer Julia’s overall direction based on that momentum.
So in the context of “2, 5, 10 years plans ahead” question - a single centralized place makes it easier to infer such plans and direction. Yes, PEP doesn’t publish those plans, but simply based on the traction around No GIL PEP you could infer that it’s happening soon and that is a priority at the moment (along other things).
That said, I agree with @ChrisRackauckas that we need to start somewhere. I like the idea from @mbauman of asking core developers about their plans for 2026 and making that visible — perhaps as a blog post on the main Julia website. But ultimately, I think the goal shouldn’t be to produce more content, but rather to establish a centralized system for documenting ideas and directions, similar to the PEP process.
Please lets no do that. Julia deserves to be great today. We don’t need to wait X amount of years because someone did that. Lets make it better. Lets not wait.
I don’t agree that having a central organization is unnecessary. This isn’t about development being easier or harder; it’s about clarity and prioritization. Even if something is technically easy to do, it’s still important to know whether it’s considered a priority. That’s not a technical issue but an organizational one.
Some people have already said that I can already find the answers I’m looking for. And yes, I can and in fact I do know many answers — but only because I’ve spent a lot of time searching.At the moment, I often find myself asking around about specific topics I’m interested in, which is inefficient for everyone involved. I also never suggested this information, direction or plans do not exists. I will repeat, but my main concern is that the information is too scattered, making it unnecessarily difficult to find. Many people won’t make that effort and may move away from Julia for long-term projects simply because they can’t easily see where it’s heading. The PEP process is a proven model for how such a system of directions and priorities can work effectively, but it doesn’t need to be an exact copy of course.
It’s a bit discouraging to see arguments against such an approach. I don’t see any major drawbacks to making Julia’s development process more transparent, structured, and centralized. Once we have that foundation, new content will naturally emerge.