Are we in 2012 seriously saying the word "lambda" is scary to developers? This sounds ridiculous. The word lambda is widely used by programmers in a variety of communities.
On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 5:14 PM, David Bruant <[email protected]> wrote: > Le 11/01/2012 22:42, John J Barton a écrit : > > On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 1:04 PM, David Bruant <[email protected]> wrote: > >> From your e-mail, it seems granted that "more developers interested" is >> a good thing. I can't really say whether I agree or not. So I guess I >> should ask the question: is more developers interested a good thing? >> > > If your interest in language design ends with design, then No, it does > not matter how many developers are interested. > > If your interest in language design extends to seeing that design in > practice by millions of developers, then Yes it does matter how many > developers are interested. > > I think I disagree with the approach with which you're taking this issue. > From your response I understand that JavaScript language maintainer are > responsible for bringing more developers to the discussion. > To some extent, I agree and they actually do too apparently. There is an > open mailing-list, a wiki. Some of the TC39 folks go at conferences, > present what ES.next will be, present open questions, and do Q&A. So far, I > have probably seen 10 40-60 minutes-long videos of this kind over the last > 3 years. > > But this is not enough? Features would also need to have cute names to not > scare developers? I'm sorry, but I think it's asking too much. I think > there is also an effort on the developers side to show interest in the > evolution of the language, understand its history, its flaws, etc. > > I agree that bringing more developers to the discussion is a good thing > and I think the door is wide open for that. If anyone disagrees with this, > find es-discuss hostile in some way, please raise your concerns. > But there is also an effort on developers to be done. If someone stops > reading an idea just because of its name, I'm sorry, but this person is not > really motivated and I don't really know why hours should be spent renaming > a feature just to encourage people to read ideas. > > > > >> >> Language design and evolution of a language are not necessarily things >> that are of everyone interest. I think that those who are actually >> interested in the evolution of JavaScript read proposals and strawmen >> regardless of how scary the name may sound. >> If just the name of a proposal is enough to scare someone out, then this >> person may just not be interested in the evolution of the language... and >> that's perfectly fine. >> > > If you only care about proposals, sure. But if you care about seeing > those proposals implemented you need to investigate the implementation > process. It starts with an evaluation of cost/benefit: will the many person > hours invested in block lambda implementation result in my browser > developers using JavaScript block lambdas? Or should I put those hours > elsewhere? > > That's an interesting question. And I think that the developers who care > about the evolution of the language will provide valuable feedback. Those > who are annoyed by what changes when you turn a loop body into an anonymous > function as a forEach argument will speak up. Or not. But those who care > will tell you. And you'll never hear about those who don't care and since > they don't care, it does not matter that much. > > And then, there is the fence. Those who are "sort-of-interested". I would > say that their own motivation is what will put them on what side of the > fence. > > Motivation-based selection is a good way of selecting people. Have a low > entry-barrier and let those who care come to you, rather than trying to > bring everyone to you. > I have observed several such systems at work and have always been amazed > by how efficient it was. > > The remaining question is "how low should the barrier be?" and in this > case "should proposal names be changed to stop scaring some people out?". > This is where I would say "no", because I consider that the name of a > proposal is not enough to demotivate someone who care. This is subjective > (and of course, I am also not in position of making a decision anyway :-p ). > > In order to lower the barrier to entry, why not considering starting to > translate the wiki in Mandarin, Spanish, French, Portuguese? There are a > lot of developers IN THE ENTIRE WORLD who do not bring feedback just > because they are not proficient enough in English. They will be affected by > changes made to the JavaScript language. > > On the good side of thing, English-speaking developers still have the > ability to read the strawman written in English even if "Lambda" sounds > latin to them. They just need to click the link. How low is the barrier for > them? > > > > > >> >> Besides naming, I think that the important thing is explaining what these >> names are about. Brendan Eich gave a presentation on proxies at JSConf.eu. >> Before that, who in the JS community was aware of what proxies are? Not a >> lot I would guess. >> This presentation helped explaining the idea and sharing some knowledge >> on what "reflection" is. In my opinion, this kind of sharing is more >> important than the fact that the feature is named "proxy" or "tartanpion". >> I did some of it when documenting WeakMaps on MDN [1]. >> The article you mention does this work too. There is no explanation on >> what a lambda is, but it does explain what JavaScript anonymous functions >> lack and how "block lambda" would be an improvement. >> >> As long as there are people doing this, names are not really important I >> think. >> > > Of course I disagree. "Block Lambda" is like "sodium lauryl ether > sulfate": a technically correct name with complex connotations unrelated to > the end-users need. > > Good names are hard to design, but they are important. > > Good ideas are hard to understand, regardless of their name and I think > it's important for people to make the effort to understand the idea and > forgetting about the label it carries. > If "block lambda" were called "anonymous method" or "first-class block" or > "callable blocks", would that help to better understand the underlying > idea? The problem it solves? how it is different from "anonymous > functions"? I don't think so, it would just be a slightly less scary label. > > David > > _______________________________________________ > es-discuss mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss > >
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