On Tuesday, 1 March 2016 at 16:23:37 UTC, Jack Stouffer wrote:
On Tuesday, 1 March 2016 at 13:48:18 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
wrote:
How would cutting and pasting from phobos be better than using
it? -- Andrei
There wouldn't be downward pressure on Phobos devs from DMD
devs to not change anything.
One of the things that contributed to my decision to switch to
D from Python is that D is:
1. Willing to admit that it made a mistake
2. Willing to fix it through deprecation -> un-documentation ->
removal
Python is no longer willing to make backwards incompatible
changes with with it's bad experience with Python 3. Therefore
one of two things will happen. Either the language will
stagnate, or the bad ideas will remain when new ideas are
added, bloating the language.
If you have more pressure not to not change anything, I think
this will have negative consequences. Bad ideas must be
removed, and removed as soon as possible, if the language is to
thrive.
I agree - that's exactly right (I don't mean about python, as I'm
not involved there). Balancing between change for the sake of it
and stasis requires good judgment, and not everybody who voices
loudly an opinion on the topic excels at this.
As Walter says, you should listen to the people who already like
you and use your product, and spend less time worrying about
those who don't. Because it tends to be the case that should you
change what they say, they'll find something else to complain
about.
Of the 'serious developers' who have the most skin in the game
commercially, it doesn't seem like they are upset with the
present way things are done. If anything, Sociomantic - to take
the most prominent example - have asked for a bit more breakage
to do things right.
Also, life involves Type 1 and Type 2 errors. If over time you
don't have some people unhappy that there is too much breakage
and some unhappy that you seem to be stuck with bad legacy
choices then you probably aren't striking the right balance, and
it's worth bearing that in mind, I think.
