Since the [Nim vs V language](https://forum.nim-lang.org/t/4758) thread was 
locked, I'll post here my comments, for I just came across it.

@Araq:

> Or maybe it's because Nim is more effective than V at solving the problems it 
> was designed to solve. Not everybody believes in programming **language 
> designer fascism**.

Seriously? I come from an Italian family which has fought and suffered huge 
losses under the fascist regime, and I find your comment rather out of place 
and inappropriate. What's the political context that justifies using such a 
comparison?

V-lang author is not acting under any mandate of State power that enables him 
to forcibly impose his ideas and works on anyone. How can you compare his open 
source efforts to the Italian and Spanish fascist regimes that incarcerated, 
deported and killed political dissidents and people which were considered 
unwanted citizens based on their ethnic origins or sexual orientations? Regimes 
which colonized other countries in the name of "racial superiority", leaving 
behind a mayhem of corpses, torture and raped women.

Whether Alexander Medvednikov's views on what makes a programming language 
better than others are correct or not, or if he might have misrepresented Nim 
in comparison to V, can't justify describing his work as fascism. He is, after 
all, an open source developer devoting his time to a project he believes in, 
and which he has chosen to share with the world under a permissive license, 
releasing its source code so that anyone can challenge it, improve it, fork it.

@Araq, I was quite surprised by your comment, and I would have expected a 
better example to be set by the main Nim developer. I'm not sure you realize 
the impression that reading such comments can create on visitors to the forum, 
but I invite you to consider the consequences of such stances.

No matter how technically good a language might be, in order to become 
widespread it also needs a strong and harmonious community that thrives around 
it, where people feel comfortable writing and being associated with. And of 
course, any language also benefits from being presented at public events, 
receive funding and positive reviews from magazines and authors.

I'm not quite convinced that exploiting highly charged political terms borrowed 
from history, only to prove a technical point in a dispute, might be the right 
way to go in terms of public relations with fellow developers in the field. As 
a general rule, developers tend to avoid political disputes for the sake of 
peaceful coexistence, and the industry doesn't like to be associated with 
political stances either, in the name of neutrality.

While I do understand that you may feel compelled to defend Nim from any 
incorrect (or unjust) critiques, in virtue of all the time and love you've 
dedicated to its development; I can't condone similar comments. For some people 
terms like "fascism" and "nazism" don't carry a meaning, and they tend to use 
them lightly. But if you do use them, then you can't expect that people for 
whom these terms still carry a meaning in their lives, through their personal 
history, will just standby silently.

Actions have consequences, and writing similar statements on a public forum is 
inappropriate, to say the least, and is going to leave a mark on Nim records if 
it comes from a Nim developer or is condoned by one.

I do not think that Alexander Medvednikov is a fascist, nor that his works has 
any fascist elements in it, for I can't see any reflection of the horrors of 
those regimes in his work, quite the contrary. And I'm not going to be silent 
about this either, for similar comments belittle the magnitude of fascim by 
transforming it into a generic term to express disapproval.

And since the V vs Nim comparison page was removed in the meantime, I couldn't 
avoid wondering if it this might have anything to do with the fascist labeling 
— personally, I would have removed the page after a similar reaction.

@Araq, is this really the path that Nim forum is willing to take? Labeling 
other developers in disparaging ways only to affirm Nim superiority — which, by 
the way, is something on which most users of this forum already agree upon. 
Then, what next? Where is this attitude going to take the forum in a year time, 
if it becomes a commonly accepted practice? If we can freely label other 
developers as fascists, where's the limit?

There have been already more than enough posts on Nim vs Rust — some of them of 
rather dubious constructiveness. Let's at least keep at bay the phenomenon, by 
at least avoiding to politicize it. Of course, focusing on Nim virtues would be 
preferable, but this option seems long gone already, for the whole debate of 
"us better than them" has taken momentum.

I have never doubted the excellence of Nim language, from its very early stages 
it captured my attention, and it doesn't need to magnify itself by belittling 
other languages, for I believe that the language speaks for itself.

What I would like though is to know that the Nim forum is going to be a 
friendly community, where respect among users as well as other developers is 
the common ground, regardless of their ideas. Is it?

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