On 18/10/16 07:34, Walter Bright wrote:
You've gotten user defined attributes in the language (and very
undemocratically, I might add!), Win64 support, VC++ symbolic debug
info, a number of improvements to C++ class support, SIMD support, SIMD
intrinsics, pragma inline, yeah, we never listen to you :-)
You've been a large influence over D, and a very positive one.
I take issue with that statement. Not with Manu being a positive
influence, of course, but with the legitimacy of telling someone what it
is they should care about. Andrei is known to have done it as well (with
statements such as "choose your battles and fight them well").
You cannot tell someone volunteering his time to not care about some
thing. This is simply not how you create a heterogeneous community.
This is also a very bad strategy. If you accept the premise that it is
possible for something to be flawed, but for both you and Andrei to not
understand it is so (i.e. - the premise that both you and Andrei are
human with human failing), any system in which you can control what gets
discussed is a system that guarantees that this flaw will never get fixed.
I understand that certain topics seem to crop up again and again, and
the discussions around them seem circular. There are ways to prevent
that without shutting down people.
For example, taking a page from one of my pet peeves, if anyone bringing
up integer promotion is not dealt with "yeah, we've discussed that and
it's pointless to bring it up", but instead is shown the counter
examples that halted the discussion the previous time, I believe several
things will happen:
1. People will feel they are listened to. The decision will seem (but, I
believe, also actually be) less arbitrary.
2. People will know where to focus their attention if they wish for this
to change
3. Someone may actually find a solution.
You cannot argue with "this will never happen". You can argue with "this
doesn't work because of X".
Shachar
