I would argue that the "mess" in this equation was the historical absence of specifications concerning important - no - critical semantics. This is not a Merlin thing - it's simply the fact that the missing semantics are now being documented.
There is no longer any reasonable justification for concurrent, conflicting, or non-existent specifications. If we don't like the resulting Avalon semantics - then we change the specification (within the historical constraints we are subject to).
Please realize that "change the semantics" means _practically_ that every proposal by me is summarily rejected, as history bears out. It also means that a Merlin utility is offered to be promoted as a distributable, and then magically becomes the standard unbeknownst to the rest of the Avalon team.
This sideways definition of semantics and procedural mess is the bad that has come from Merlin. Its as if noone really had a clue what they were agreeing to, and then stuck with what was there. We are not microsoft, and we cannot run the community like their EULAs. Everything needs to be discussed out in the open with all side effects enumerated.
Agreeing to release "Avalon Meta" as a product (excuse me, system library), somehow meant that it was the definition of all tags for the Avalon system. This was not a desired side effect, and historically if we knew how that was going to be handled in the past it would not have happened.
It was not that we disagreed that there should be some standard meta tags, or what some of those tags should be, it was that the library forced the definition instead of the community agreeing and adjusting the library to suit.
We all remember the big bruhaha over the discussion on the meta tags. There was disagreement to say the least.
The mess is not the technology, but how the technology usurped the definition of Avalon components.
--
"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."
- Rich Cook
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