Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. However, those opinions should be expressed in a polite manner. Phrases such as "Choice he (since its mostly men)" and "mentally masturbate" do not seem to foster a welcoming, inclusive environment. Quoting from https://github.com/mozilla/rust/wiki/Note-development-policy#conduct:
* We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, religion, or similar personal characteristic Thanks, -Palmer Cox On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 6:56 AM, spir <[email protected]> wrote: > Holà! > > [This is a rather personal and involved post. Press del if you feel like > it...] > [also, it is long] > [copy to rust-dev mailing list: actually the post is inspired by a thread > there "Thoughts on the Rust Roadmap"] > > There is a point obvious to me; apparently most people including many > language designers don't share it, or act as if they did not: > > a language should be successful iff it is of high quality > > A kind of symmetric statement also holds; > > let us hope low quality languages have no success! > > There are various reasons to hope this, the most stupid beeing that > successful languages influence others, present & future. This is in my view > a symptom of our civilisation's funny spirit (read: madness), and related > to the actual points I intend to state (if, for once, I manage to express > my thought). > > Apparently, many language designers proceed more or less the following > way: there are a few key points (for them) they consider mis-designed or > missing or wrong in some way in existing languages (not all the same for > every language). Thus, they want to make a language that repairs these > points, all together. Then, certainly in fear that too many changes may > repel potential adopters of their language, in hope to maximise its chances > of success *despite* it breaking habits on the key points more important to > them, they won't change anything else, or only the bare minimum they can. > They want instead to remain as mainstream as possible on everything else. > [4] > > I consider this spirit bad; I mean, very bad. This is the way basic design > errors propagate from successful languages to others, for instance. [1] > Apparently, it takes a great dose of courage to break any existing practice > in a _new_ language: tell me why, I do not understand. > > Note that I am here talking of wrong design points in the opinion of a > given language designer. Choices he (since it's mostly men) would not do if > programming were a new field, open to all explorations. (There are indeed > loads of subjective or ideological design points; see also [1] & [3]) > However, while programming is not a new field anymore, it is indeed open to > all explorations, for you, for me, if you or me wants it. Nothing blocks us > but our own bloackages, our own fears, and, probably, wrong rationales, > perhaps non-fully-conscious ones. > > Deciding to reuse wrong, but mainstream, design decisions in one's own > language is deciding to intentionally make it of lower quality. !!! Funny > (read: mad), isn't it? It is thus also intentionally deciding to make it > not worth success. This, apparently, to make its actual chances of success > higher. (Isn't our culture funny?) > Then, why does one _actually_ make a new language? For the joy of making > something good? To contribute to a better world, since languages and > programming are a common good? [2] For the joy of offering something of as > high a quality as humanly possible? Else, why? For fame, honour, status, > money, power? To mentally masturbate on the idea of having made something > "sucessful" (sic!)? > > We are not in need of yet another language trying, or pretending, to > improve on a handful of disparate points, leaving all the rest as is, > meaning in bad state. And, as an example, we are not in need of yet another > failed trial for a successor to C as major low-level lang. > Differences, thought of by their designer as significant quality > improvements, are the *reasons* for programmers to adopt a new language. > There are the _only_ (good) reasons to do so. Thinking that programmers may > adopt a new language _despite_ its differences is thinking backwards; this, > in addition to preventing oneself from working for the common good; by > fear, probably; fear of truely thinking by oneself and/or of making one's > true thinking public truely. (I can understand that, however: I often do > not disclose my thinking by fear of the terrible level of violence, in my > view, present in the programming "community" [hum!], and among geeks in > general. This, rather than sharing and mutual help and cooperation, for the > common wealth. Our civilisation... again.) > > I have recently decided to adopt possible differences even if i am not > that convinced of their betterness; to give alternatives a try; to give > them at least a chance to show us (or just me) how good they actually are, > or not, in practice, maybe on the long term [3]. > This may go too far; it is a personal decision. > > However, deciding not to change what one sees wrong is weird for the > least. It means removing points of quality according to one's own views, > removing chances to contrbute to a better world, removing sources of > personal satisfaction, removing reasons for others to judge a language > better, thus removing motivation for programmers to adopt it. Maybe, > certainly, many programmers do not adopt a language on the base of its > quality, only; however, this counts; people I wish would adopt my lang, if > ever, are those people who judge first on quality, not hype followers or > otherwise conservatives. > What I mean is, apart from working against the common wealth, in addition > to preventing one's own enjoyment of doing what one does, such an attitude > may also work against a language's potential success. Is this (a factor) > why we have no successor to C yet, what do you think? because most > designers kept most of its design bugs unchanged? [4] just to have a > minimal chance, should a potential successor instead break as much as > possible? (And not have a builtin interface to C? ???) > > Also note that attitudes and spirits are psycho-sociologically contagious. > In particular, fear and lack of courage and angst are highly contagious (in > our world, with such a close to universal high level of anxiety...) What if > more (would-be) language designers boldly thought by themselves and boldly > assumed their thoughts? > > Final note: isn't it weird that such conformism is _that_ prevalent among > language designers? Precisely the ones who should be bearers of novelty? > the one "milieu" which could & should be a network of interacting > counter-cultures and individual iconoclasts (idol breakers)? > > I do not expect anyone shares (all of) this. I just hope it may open new > ways of thinking or questionning to a few. > > Denis > > [1] Including the funny usage of "=" for assignment and "==" for equality, > after at least 5 decades, lol! Still my favorite syntactic error after > dozens of thousands of hours of programming in languages which nearly all > use this amusing convention. Why not use "if" to mean 'try' or 'switch' or > 'foreach', and "ifif" to mean 'if'? What do you think? > > [2] Actually, they are both communal and social. Better quality languages > may contribute to a better world, at a communal level because we > programmers share code and read others' code all the time, and at a social > level because apps are a significant part of the world's state. > > [3] As you certainly know, it takes time to unlearn, especially to stop > judging something bad while it is just different. (Think at C programmers > and their beloved code block {} braces. I for one have better usage for > brace ;-.) > > [4] As an anecdote, somewhat complementary, in the course of my > explorations about programming languages, I often stepped on lists of C > design bugs, at least a dozen of them. Typically endless lists that take a > quarter of an hour to read in one go, without comments. There is space to > works for a language lover :-). If not enough, usually such critics seems > to agree on more than half of the points (and the remaining ones may not > figure on some lists just because the critic not think at it or did not > study this point) (but their solutions may diverge...). > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Rust-dev mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/rust-dev >
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