On 17/09/2015 09:06, Mike Parker wrote:
On Wednesday, 16 September 2015 at 14:40:26 UTC, Bruno Medeiros wrote:
And on this aspect I think the development of D does very poorly.
Often people clamored for a feature or change (whether people in the D
community, or the C++ one), and Walter you went ahead and did it,
regardless of whether it will actually increase D usage in the long
run. You are prone to this, given your nature to please people who ask
for things, or to prove people wrong (as you yourself admitted).
I apologize for not remembering any example at the moment, but I know
there was quite a few, especially many years back. It usually went
like this:
C++ community guy: "D is crap, it's not gonna be used without X"
*some time later*
Walter: "Ok, I've now implemented X in D!"
the same C++ community guy: either finds another feature or change to
complain about (repeat), or goes silent, or goes "meh, D is still not
good"
Me and other people from D community: "ok... now we have a new
half-baked functionality in D, adding complexity for little value, and
put here only to please people that are extremely unlikely to ever be
using D whatever any case"...
I find this assessment inaccurate. In my own experience, I have come to
see Walter as Dr. No (in a good sense!) in that he has said no to a
great many feature requests over the years. The instances where a
feature was implemented that took the community by surprise have been
rare indeed. And even then, we are not privy to the support requests and
other discussions that Walter has with the businesses using D. I'm
confident that what goes on in his head when deciding to pursue a change
or enhancement has little to do with willy-nilly complaints by C++ users.
Dr. No for the D community. If someone from D community said "D won't
succeed without X", or "D can't be made to work without X", that
wouldn't have much clout with Walter. (unless that someone is behind a
company using D commercially, or considering so)
But if people from the C++ community said it, OMG, then Walter goes
"let's add it to D!", just to prove a point or something. *Mind you*:
all this I'm saying is pre TDPL book stuff. After the book was out,
things stabilized. But way back, even more so before D2, it would happen
quite often. Again apologies for no references or examples, but this is
all stuff from 4-7 years ago so it's hard to remember exact cases.
--
Bruno Medeiros
https://twitter.com/brunodomedeiros
