On Tuesday, 13 February 2018 at 03:40:52 UTC, Jonathan M Davis
wrote:
{snip} I suspect that part of it is that a lot of folks seem to
come to D looking for the perfect language after having be
frustrated by another language like C++, and while D is a lot
closer to that for many folks than other languages are, it
still has plenty of flaws, and we want those flaws fixed so
that it can become the perfect language. Obviously, that's not
going to happen. No language is perfect, but the vocal portion
of the D community does have a tendency to want to push for
everything that's arguably wrong with D to be fixed, and that
can result in a lot of negativity, but it can also result in
things getting fixed (though that requires actually doing
something about it rather than just complaining).
I think what would help here is a D wiki page (maybe
<https://wiki.dlang.org/Language_issues> could be expanded) that
lists perceived flaws in the language, together with an
explanation whether or not it's really considered a flaw, and if
it is, why it's not being fixed. Those not-being-fixed reasons
are the real crux of the issue, I think:
* If the reason is lack of manpower or expertise in the area,
then complaints about the flaw can be responded with, "see [that
wiki page], can you pitch in?".
* If the reason is that by fixing the issue it would cause
problems {x}, {y}, and {z}, then the person raising the complaint
learns something about language design.
* If the reason is the language design team's personal
preference on the matter, and the tradeoffs are listed, then
users learn what the tradeoffs are and have to live with it.
* If the reason for not fixing the issue is hesitation to break
backward compatibility, then this may be an issue that D
leadership wants to hear feedback on.
But I think pointing people to that wiki page and laying it out
like that may diffuse a lot of arguments.
