Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 14 April 2017 at 21:09:23 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
Fundamentally changing the language is a major undertaking. The 
language is complicated, there's a lot of baggage, and the 
reason things are the way they are is usually unclear. Having a 
handwavy post proposing such things is just not good enough.


It's a fact of life that 99% (made up number) of fundamental 
language change proposals are going to fail. What an 
intractable mess D would be if the daily stream of language 
proposals were implemented. I have more than enough trouble 
with regressions caused by previous language changes.


I'm not disputing that, and I would always defend your right, as 
the person with ultimate responsibility for the language, to have 
the ultimate veto.


Nevertheless, if you peruse the PRs, a number of language 
changes have been made by various champions. There is the way 
import lookups are done now - a change implemented by myself 
and Martin, but proposed by others. The way Ddoc works has been 
altered significantly by others, such as having runnable 
embedded example code. Kenji made many subtle changes to how 
templates work.


Out of curiosity -- when did these things happen, and what was 
the process people went through?  It could be interesting to 
understand if these contributions were easier because they 
occurred at a time when the language definition was less well 
defined and so it was easier to champion changes.


I read deadalnix's posts. I pointed out major unaddressed 
issues, like how does it deal with an application using 
multiple independent methods of allocating memory.


To be clear -- I don't want to make this about the specifics of 
Deadalnix's proposal.  I chose to use that as an example for 
discussion ... on which I'll follow up in reply to your next 
remarks:


If you or anyone else want to self-select as the champion for 
it to make it more complete, that's how things work. I work 
every day trying to keep D moving - I spent yesterday updating 
the /dmd/samples so they work again, nobody else wanted to do 
it. I also spent much time yesterday figuring out why Windows 
DLL support broke again. Nobody else was going to do that. I 
simply cannot turn every idea posted here into a detailed 
proposal.


Keep in mind that other languages, such as C++, will not even 
look at any proposals that are not detailed and complete. And 
that's just the start of a pretty brutal winnowing process. 
Their position is that if the proponent of a change is not 
willing to put in the work to make a detailed proposal, why 
should it be worth their time to investigate it? It can't work 
any other way.


I agree that, broadly, this is how things need to work, and I'm 
not suggesting that it should be your responsibility to take 
other people's skeleton ideas and flesh them out.  But note that 
C++'s process is possible at least partly because there is such a 
scale of people involved, that probably (i) they _have_ to 
operate this brutally just in order to get the number of 
proposals down to a manageable scale, and (ii) there's always 
going to be another person willing to pick up a good idea, if the 
original proponent drops out.


What I'm suggesting (and I won't repeat myself from my post above 
) is not that you load yourself with even more work, but just to consider some specific short-term measures to try to raise the level of confidence people have in engaging with process.


I.e. invest in changing people's perceptions of process now, to 
drive much more productive engagement with process in future.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

On 4/14/2017 11:08 PM, Shachar Shemesh wrote:

Keep in mind that other languages, such as C++, will not even look at
any proposals that are not detailed and complete.


While nothing there is perfect, I don't agree with that point. Language changes
are being proposed on the mailing list all the time. Many of them are very very
very *very* far from being complete, and a discussion is what happens next. Very
few of those ideas actually make it into proposals.

I'm not saying that the C++ way is perfect, or even necessarily better. Just
that your point of comparison is stating incorrect facts.


When the C++ Committee meets, they go over and formally respond to submitted 
proposals only. Not mailing list discussions, and the Committee does not 
transform mailing list discussions into formal proposals. (Individual members 
might do so as self-selected champions, but that is not Committee work.)


In no way have I shut down discussion of any ideas on this n.g. You and anyone 
else is free to continue working on deadalnix's ideas, and collaborate here on 
the n.g. I have already posted replies to deadalnix in this n.g. pointing out 
where further work is needed.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Shachar Shemesh via Digitalmars-d]

On 15/04/17 00:09, Walter Bright wrote:


I read deadalnix's posts. I pointed out major unaddressed issues, like
how does it deal with an application using multiple independent methods
of allocating memory.


Do you have a link? I certainly think his direction rings of better 
engineering than the road you are trying to take right now, and I might 
try to pick it up myself.



Keep in mind that other languages, such as C++, will not even look at
any proposals that are not detailed and complete.


While nothing there is perfect, I don't agree with that point. Language 
changes are being proposed on the mailing list all the time. Many of 
them are very very very *very* far from being complete, and a discussion 
is what happens next. Very few of those ideas actually make it into 
proposals.


I'm not saying that the C++ way is perfect, or even necessarily better. 
Just that your point of comparison is stating incorrect facts.


Shachar

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

On 4/14/2017 7:27 AM, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:

Even allowing for the fact that changes to the language definition should face a
high bar (made higher by the general wish for non-breaking changes), that
suggests that the 'champion'-based approach may run into difficulties when it
comes to more fundamental contributions to the D language.


Fundamentally changing the language is a major undertaking. The language is 
complicated, there's a lot of baggage, and the reason things are the way they 
are is usually unclear. Having a handwavy post proposing such things is just not 
good enough.


It's a fact of life that 99% (made up number) of fundamental language change 
proposals are going to fail. What an intractable mess D would be if the daily 
stream of language proposals were implemented. I have more than enough trouble 
with regressions caused by previous language changes.


Nevertheless, if you peruse the PRs, a number of language changes have been made 
by various champions. There is the way import lookups are done now - a change 
implemented by myself and Martin, but proposed by others. The way Ddoc works has 
been altered significantly by others, such as having runnable embedded example 
code. Kenji made many subtle changes to how templates work.


I read deadalnix's posts. I pointed out major unaddressed issues, like how does 
it deal with an application using multiple independent methods of allocating memory.


If you or anyone else want to self-select as the champion for it to make it more 
complete, that's how things work. I work every day trying to keep D moving - I 
spent yesterday updating the /dmd/samples so they work again, nobody else wanted 
to do it. I also spent much time yesterday figuring out why Windows DLL support 
broke again. Nobody else was going to do that. I simply cannot turn every idea 
posted here into a detailed proposal.


Keep in mind that other languages, such as C++, will not even look at any 
proposals that are not detailed and complete. And that's just the start of a 
pretty brutal winnowing process. Their position is that if the proponent of a 
change is not willing to put in the work to make a detailed proposal, why should 
it be worth their time to investigate it? It can't work any other way.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d]

Points well taken, thanks. One clarification - there is no need to 
formalize feedback to a DIP as another DIP, unless of course it is an 
alternative approach of its own.


A better process will indeed help all of us and raise the level of 
responsibility across the board. Acting on feedback entails good 
feedback is being passed around, thus creating a virtuous circle. So far 
the best example of that we have around is DIP1005, wherein successive 
rounds of meaningful feedback led to rigorous experiments and reviews, 
which in turn revealed new and surprising insights.



Thanks,

Andrei

On 04/14/2017 11:12 AM, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:

On Thursday, 6 April 2017 at 19:27:50 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

We commit to be more formal about the process, but overall it is
correct that we have more say in what gets in the language. Allow me
to add a couple of things.

First, this is the way things are commonly done in language design - a
small committee defines a formal process and ultimately decides on
features. In fact it is unusual that we put up unfinished ideas up for
discussion, which we hope has the raises the level of responsibility
in the community. I understand how what we did has been misunderstood
as us just considering ourselves exempt from the due process.


I'm glad to hear your intentions regarding process, but on this note I
think there's a point that's worth considering.

One of the challenges we have is that a number of talented people have
in the last years become disillusioned with the ability to get results
through the processes on the table, or to have their feedback taken into
account.  That means that there's not just a question of process moving
forward; there's a question of how to undo the credibility gap that's
been created by these past events.

So, while I think it's good that you lead by example in putting complete
ideas up for discussion, it's also necessary to lead by example in
actively seeking and taking on board feedback on these ideas, wherever
it comes from (whether through a formal DIP review, or in discussion on
the message boards, or whatever).  This matters because if people can
see that their smaller-scale feedback is being clearly taken into
account, it gives greater encouragement to actually put in the work on
larger-scale, more complete ideas of their own.

To take an example, Deadalnix' feedback on the @nogc Exceptions thread
may not have been actionable, but there was detailed information there
that could have been the subject of future investigation.  It comes
across as putting process before community to insist that this feedback
be provided via a DIP or in the formal review of a DIP
 before it
will be taken on board.  You have the information; why wouldn't you
engage with it, if nothing else just to show willingness to break with
the way things turned out in the past?

Put it this way: if the complaint is that you and Walter bypass process
when you feel like it to get your own ideas through, a good way back
from that might be to switch the equation round -- to _strictly_ apply
process to your own ideas and contributions, but to actively engage with
community feedback and ideas even when it doesn't go through the
expected channels.

Then, if you get some level of progress and increased engagement with
that, you might slowly make the process for everyone stricter over time
-- once confidence in the process has been re-established.

That general principle -- of applying a higher bar to oneself than to
anyone else -- is one that can serve well in increasing confidence in
leadership.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 6 April 2017 at 19:27:50 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:
We commit to be more formal about the process, but overall it 
is correct that we have more say in what gets in the language. 
Allow me to add a couple of things.


First, this is the way things are commonly done in language 
design - a small committee defines a formal process and 
ultimately decides on features. In fact it is unusual that we 
put up unfinished ideas up for discussion, which we hope has 
the raises the level of responsibility in the community. I 
understand how what we did has been misunderstood as us just 
considering ourselves exempt from the due process.


I'm glad to hear your intentions regarding process, but on this 
note I think there's a point that's worth considering.


One of the challenges we have is that a number of talented people 
have in the last years become disillusioned with the ability to 
get results through the processes on the table, or to have their 
feedback taken into account.  That means that there's not just a 
question of process moving forward; there's a question of how to 
undo the credibility gap that's been created by these past events.


So, while I think it's good that you lead by example in putting 
complete ideas up for discussion, it's also necessary to lead by 
example in actively seeking and taking on board feedback on these 
ideas, wherever it comes from (whether through a formal DIP 
review, or in discussion on the message boards, or whatever).  
This matters because if people can see that their smaller-scale 
feedback is being clearly taken into account, it gives greater 
encouragement to actually put in the work on larger-scale, more 
complete ideas of their own.


To take an example, Deadalnix' feedback on the @nogc Exceptions 
thread may not have been actionable, but there was detailed 
information there that could have been the subject of future 
investigation.  It comes across as putting process before 
community to insist that this feedback be provided via a DIP or 
in the formal review of a DIP 
 
before it will be taken on board.  You have the information; why 
wouldn't you engage with it, if nothing else just to show 
willingness to break with the way things turned out in the past?


Put it this way: if the complaint is that you and Walter bypass 
process when you feel like it to get your own ideas through, a 
good way back from that might be to switch the equation round -- 
to _strictly_ apply process to your own ideas and contributions, 
but to actively engage with community feedback and ideas even 
when it doesn't go through the expected channels.


Then, if you get some level of progress and increased engagement 
with that, you might slowly make the process for everyone 
stricter over time -- once confidence in the process has been 
re-established.


That general principle -- of applying a higher bar to oneself 
than to anyone else -- is one that can serve well in increasing 
confidence in leadership.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Joseph Rushton Wakeling via Digitalmars-d]

On Monday, 10 April 2017 at 22:07:11 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

There are many. A random sampling:

Daniel Murphy - moving front end to D
Jacob Carlborg - Objective C support
Stephan Koch - newCTFE
Brad Roberts - autotester, bugzilla
the gdc and ldc teams
Rainer Schutze - GC work, Visual Studio support
Martin Nowak - the releases
Ali Cehreli - book on D
Adam Ruppe - book on D
Jan Knepper - the dlang site server


One thing that's noticeable about all of these is that they are 
all changes to the language implementation (e.g. D frontend, 
newCTFE, GC), documentation (the books, the website), tools (the 
other compilers), and distribution; but none of them are 
significant changes to the language _definition_.


The only one that comes close is the Objective C support and 
that's a supplemental feature (albeit a very useful and important 
one) that's about how D interacts with other languages, rather 
than how D itself works.


Even allowing for the fact that changes to the language 
definition should face a high bar (made higher by the general 
wish for non-breaking changes), that suggests that the 
'champion'-based approach may run into difficulties when it comes 
to more fundamental contributions to the D language.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[xenon325 via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 11 April 2017 at 19:18:32 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
While you're no charismatic hero by any stretch of imagination, 
you do carry quite some weight in what you say simply by your 
history of achievements, as well as your technical expertise 
and wealth of experience in computer-related issues. It's no 
surprise that in this crowd full of like-minded nerds who 
respect technical expertise, you're doing none too badly.  It 
might be a completely different story if you were in a more 
"typical" social setting, though. :-P


Yeah, Intel's "Our rock stars are not like your rock stars" ad 
[1] illustrates the idea really well.


[1]: https://youtu.be/zMlWbTqwkdU (30 seconds)

--
Alexander

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Adam D. Ruppe via Digitalmars-d]

On Monday, 10 April 2017 at 22:07:11 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

There are many. A random sampling:


The vast, vast majority of the stuff I do in D though are for 
myself. I used to want to get more into Phobos, but I just don't 
care anymore - I prefer staying as an independent library other 
than trying to include my batteries in std now.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Paolo Invernizzi via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 13 April 2017 at 11:31:12 UTC, Guillaume Piolat 
wrote:


And the most impressive to me is actually the way Walter 
answers to D users. If you are reading this forum since years 
you know what I mean. I try to emulate some of this with 
customers.


That's really true: I sincerely think that he has a real talent 
in that.

Just keep going on that way, Walter: humble and pragmatic!

(BTW, if someone has access to this: 
https://hbr.org/2017/04/if-humble-people-make-the-best-leaders-why-do-we-fall-for-charismatic-narcissists)


:-P

---
Paolo

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Guillaume Piolat via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 11 April 2017 at 19:18:32 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 10:24:01AM -0700, Walter Bright via 
Digitalmars-d wrote:
For a socially inept nerd such as myself, with all the 
charisma of a lamppost, I think D has done very well.


You underestimate yourself. While you're no charismatic hero by 
any stretch of imagination, you do carry quite some weight in 
what you say simply by your history of achievements, as well as 
your technical expertise and wealth of experience in 
computer-related issues.


+1

You're way under-estimating your street-cred :)

And the most impressive to me is actually the way Walter answers 
to D users. If you are reading this forum since years you know 
what I mean. I try to emulate some of this with customers.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

On 4/12/2017 6:37 AM, qznc wrote:

I'm not sure if Walter can claim to have written a complete C++ compiler all by
himself.


I can and I did - if you consider a complete compiler as source code to object 
file.

I've even written part of a linker (BLINK, the Zortech linker, the bulk of which 
was written by Bjorn Freeman-Benson).

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[qznc via Digitalmars-d]

On Wednesday, 12 April 2017 at 07:51:28 UTC, Joakim wrote:

On Tuesday, 11 April 2017 at 19:18:32 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 10:24:01AM -0700, Walter Bright via 
Digitalmars-d wrote:

On 4/11/2017 2:18 AM, qznc wrote:
> It usually comes down to charismatic and visionary leaders. 
> Walter and Andrei are good with that, otherwise D would 
> have faltered long ago.


For a socially inept nerd such as myself, with all the 
charisma of a lamppost, I think D has done very well.


You underestimate yourself. While you're no charismatic hero 
by any stretch of imagination, you do carry quite some weight 
in what you say simply by your history of achievements, as 
well as your technical expertise and wealth of experience in 
computer-related issues. It's no surprise that in this crowd 
full of like-minded nerds who respect technical expertise, 
you're doing none too badly.  It might be a completely 
different story if you were in a more "typical" social 
setting, though. :-P


I was going to say something similar.  I have seen responses in 
reddit/HN threads where devs were in awe that Walter Bright 
responded to them.  In the tech community, which has 
_completely_ different ideas of what constitutes charisma and 
vision, Walter and Andrei, with his distinguished history and 
very entertaining talks, are pretty much the definition.  That 
is not the issue, D has those in spades.


+1

I'm not sure if Walter can claim to have written a complete C++ 
compiler all by himself. Even if not, he is probably the one 
person on this planet, who is closest.


Walter is also pretty good with nerd-sniping [0]. ;)

[0] Example: 
https://forum.dlang.org/post/mg13tc$2ptk$1...@digitalmars.com

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Shachar Shemesh via Digitalmars-d]

On 11/04/17 21:04, bachmeier wrote:

On Tuesday, 11 April 2017 at 13:20:58 UTC, HaraldZealot wrote:


I hope that D community find its good way to interoperate and hence
survive.


Just to clarify, I'm not sure that the current process is broken. As Ken
Thompson has said of C++: "It certainly has its good points. But by and
large I think it’s a bad language. It does a lot of things half well and
it’s just a garbage heap of ideas that are mutually exclusive." The
current process does protect D from going down that road, AFAICT.



You do realize that the thread we're discussing is about how to 
reconcile exceptions and nogc, right? It seems that they are, at least 
so far, mutually exclusive.


Shachar

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Joakim via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 11 April 2017 at 19:18:32 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 10:24:01AM -0700, Walter Bright via 
Digitalmars-d wrote:

On 4/11/2017 2:18 AM, qznc wrote:
> It usually comes down to charismatic and visionary leaders. 
> Walter and Andrei are good with that, otherwise D would have 
> faltered long ago.


For a socially inept nerd such as myself, with all the 
charisma of a lamppost, I think D has done very well.


You underestimate yourself. While you're no charismatic hero by 
any stretch of imagination, you do carry quite some weight in 
what you say simply by your history of achievements, as well as 
your technical expertise and wealth of experience in 
computer-related issues. It's no surprise that in this crowd 
full of like-minded nerds who respect technical expertise, 
you're doing none too badly.  It might be a completely 
different story if you were in a more "typical" social setting, 
though. :-P


I was going to say something similar.  I have seen responses in 
reddit/HN threads where devs were in awe that Walter Bright 
responded to them.  In the tech community, which has _completely_ 
different ideas of what constitutes charisma and vision, Walter 
and Andrei, with his distinguished history and very entertaining 
talks, are pretty much the definition.  That is not the issue, D 
has those in spades.


The issues I see are communication and delegation, both of which 
probably come down to the same problem: bus factor 
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor).  I get the sense that 
the communication problems come down to reading and responding to 
a ton of threads, in addition to organizing DConf and doing a 
bunch of other D scut work, so that you don't have time to fully 
context switch for each discussion.


Taking a page from Linus, another charismatic visionary (remember 
we're talking charisma _within tech_ here) who heads the most 
successful open source project of them all, is probably in order 
here: choose people to delegate specific roles to and get that 
stuff off your plate.


Andrei has talked about doing this before, and roles like release 
manager, now manned by Martin Nowak, and DIP manager, Mike 
Parker, have been spun off.  I'm guessing Sociomantic has picked 
up a lot of the DConf management.  But I figure there's more to 
be done.


I suggest that Walter and Andrei get together and figure out what 
else they _shouldn't_ be doing and spin those out as specific 
roles, advertising that they want someone to fill them.  Think of 
it like putting up a job ad: you must figure out what work needs 
to be done, specify detailed job roles to do it, then advertise 
the openings.


I've seen vague calls for help so far, but not anything specific 
like this.  You may not get anyone to fill these new volunteer 
roles, but you're more likely to get someone than with the 
current approach.


Of course, I could be wrong and you've already delegated 
everything that you want, but I get the sense that isn't so.  As 
D scales, getting this delegation right is going to be critical.


On Tuesday, 11 April 2017 at 17:28:51 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

On 4/11/2017 4:57 AM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

On 2017-04-11 00:07, Walter Bright wrote:


There are many. A random sampling:

Jacob Carlborg - Objective C support


Actually, this one wasn't my idea originally. It was Michel 
Fortin that started
this work and did most of it. I just did the necessary work to 
get it merged

(the initial version).


I.e. you self-selected and emerged as the champion of it, and 
got it done. You're exactly what I'm talking about.


It's not really about ideas, it's about getting  done, and 
the people in the D community that get  done are inevitably 
the people who decide what gets done.


Something could be the bestest idea evar, but without a 
champion it is going nowhere.


While this is undoubtedly how open source usually works, I'm not 
sure it's exactly right for D.  For example, there was the 
checkedint PR that was submitted to Phobos and then rejected by 
Andrei, only for him to write and merge his own.  You could argue 
that the author of the original checkedint got 5#!* done, at 
least in terms of putting up an implementation, but that wasn't 
enough.  Not saying it was a waste, as it's still up on dub, for 
anyone who prefers it to use.


Your original description of getting things done is mostly 
correct, just didn't like you saying it's not "about ideas," 
because it very clearly is that too.  No doubt you're right that 
the "bestest idea" won't matter if it's not championed by someone 
who will build it, but let's not diminish ideas.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d]

On Tue, Apr 11, 2017 at 10:24:01AM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On 4/11/2017 2:18 AM, qznc wrote:
> > It usually comes down to charismatic and visionary leaders. Walter
> > and Andrei are good with that, otherwise D would have faltered long
> > ago.
> 
> For a socially inept nerd such as myself, with all the charisma of a
> lamppost, I think D has done very well.

You underestimate yourself. While you're no charismatic hero by any
stretch of imagination, you do carry quite some weight in what you say
simply by your history of achievements, as well as your technical
expertise and wealth of experience in computer-related issues. It's no
surprise that in this crowd full of like-minded nerds who respect
technical expertise, you're doing none too badly.  It might be a
completely different story if you were in a more "typical" social
setting, though. :-P


T

-- 
This is a tpyo.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[bachmeier via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 11 April 2017 at 17:28:51 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

It's not really about ideas, it's about getting  done, and 
the people in the D community that get  done are inevitably 
the people who decide what gets done.


As I tell students at the start of their dissertation: "You have 
an idea. You are 1% done. Now you have to go do the other 99% for 
it to have value to anyone else."

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[bachmeier via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 11 April 2017 at 13:20:58 UTC, HaraldZealot wrote:


I hope that D community find its good way to interoperate and 
hence survive.


Just to clarify, I'm not sure that the current process is broken. 
As Ken Thompson has said of C++: "It certainly has its good 
points. But by and large I think it’s a bad language. It does a 
lot of things half well and it’s just a garbage heap of ideas 
that are mutually exclusive." The current process does protect D 
from going down that road, AFAICT. This might upset some 
individuals, but the alternative, where the community designs the 
language, could very well be worse.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

On 4/11/2017 4:57 AM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:

On 2017-04-11 00:07, Walter Bright wrote:


There are many. A random sampling:

Jacob Carlborg - Objective C support


Actually, this one wasn't my idea originally. It was Michel Fortin that started
this work and did most of it. I just did the necessary work to get it merged
(the initial version).


I.e. you self-selected and emerged as the champion of it, and got it done. 
You're exactly what I'm talking about.


It's not really about ideas, it's about getting  done, and the people in the 
D community that get  done are inevitably the people who decide what gets done.


Something could be the bestest idea evar, but without a champion it is going 
nowhere.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

On 4/11/2017 2:18 AM, qznc wrote:

It usually comes down to charismatic and visionary leaders. Walter and Andrei
are good with that, otherwise D would have faltered long ago.


For a socially inept nerd such as myself, with all the charisma of a lamppost, I 
think D has done very well.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[HaraldZealot via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 6 April 2017 at 17:56:03 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

On Thursday, 6 April 2017 at 13:55:43 UTC, Olivier FAURE wrote:

I don't want to make any assumptions, and I do respect Walter 
for consistently taking on a role that means that people keep 
criticizing his choices whatever he does, but his approach to 
dealing with the community is undeniably flawed, and seems to 
be breeding a lot of frustration and resentment.


IMO the source of the problem is that Walter and Andrei have 
freedom to make any language changes they want, without even 
consulting the community, while everyone else has to put a lot 
of time into a formal proposal with nearly a 100% chance that 
it will be denied because of [insert your favorite reason]. The 
design of the language is done in something of a corporate 
fashion, and that leads to frustrated posts.*


I agree.

I was never personally affected by this (because I haven't 
contributed to the language or library), but I have heard enough 
rumours and read enough posts, that see this as problematic (and 
even frustrated although me not personally touched).


The problem exists probably because D community some years ago 
reached the scale when only interpersonal non-formal 
communication doesn't work for managing the development process. 
I know that Walter is oppose  to any code of conduct, but it is 
really time for this. The formalization of processes gives 
transparency and objectivity, very high needed values especially 
for volunteer community. A depersonification could also go by 
hand (but not necessary, having a written rule where e.g. Walter 
personally designated to specific role and exceptions, better 
that not have rule at all).


The DIP process is very good step in this way, but much more 
required. E.g. I have heard so much about miserable commit 
messages of one of pillar developers, that it would be funny if 
it wouldn't be so sad.


I hope that D community find its good way to interoperate and 
hence survive.


Alaksiej Stankievič

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Jacob Carlborg via Digitalmars-d]

On 2017-04-11 00:07, Walter Bright wrote:


There are many. A random sampling:

Jacob Carlborg - Objective C support


Actually, this one wasn't my idea originally. It was Michel Fortin that 
started this work and did most of it. I just did the necessary work to 
get it merged (the initial version).


--
/Jacob Carlborg

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[qznc via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 11 April 2017 at 02:20:07 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

On 4/10/2017 6:04 PM, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d wrote:
LOL. IIRC, there have been cases where you and/or Andrei have 
actually tried
to get folks to do specific stuff, and it generally hasn't 
worked. Pretty
much everything that gets done around here is because someone 
steps and does

it.


It pretty much totally doesn't work, even when the person asks 
"what can I work on?"


It's an interesting management problem, one I've never seen 
covered in management books, which never seem to cover 
volunteer organizations.


I'd say it is more about politics than management theory. At 
least in the lower ranks of politics. Local affairs are driven by 
volunteer work as well.


It usually comes down to charismatic and visionary leaders. 
Walter and Andrei are good with that, otherwise D would have 
faltered long ago.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

On 4/10/2017 6:04 PM, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d wrote:

LOL. IIRC, there have been cases where you and/or Andrei have actually tried
to get folks to do specific stuff, and it generally hasn't worked. Pretty
much everything that gets done around here is because someone steps and does
it.


It pretty much totally doesn't work, even when the person asks "what can I work 
on?"

It's an interesting management problem, one I've never seen covered in 
management books, which never seem to cover volunteer organizations.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d]

On Monday, April 10, 2017 15:07:11 Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On 4/10/2017 3:58 AM, Nick B wrote:
> >> Somebody has to work on it to move it forward - who do you propose
> >> should do it? We don't have a team anywhere whose job it is to create
> >> detailed proposals based on other peoples' ideas (which appear in the
> >> forum every day). Things rarely move forward unless a champion for it
> >> self-selects with the will and motivation to push it relentlessly.
> >
> > That sets a high bar. Can you give an example when this has worked well,
> > or have they been mostly minor changes?
>
> There are many. A random sampling:
>
> Daniel Murphy - moving front end to D
> Jacob Carlborg - Objective C support
> Stephan Koch - newCTFE
> Brad Roberts - autotester, bugzilla
> the gdc and ldc teams
> Rainer Schutze - GC work, Visual Studio support
> Martin Nowak - the releases
> Ali Cehreli - book on D
> Adam Ruppe - book on D
> Jan Knepper - the dlang site server
>
> And a LOT more.
>
> None of them are doing what I told them to do. I didn't pick any of them.
> They are all self-selected champions. They are what moves D forward.
>
> Pragmatically speaking, the champions are the ones with the most say,
> because they do the work.
>
> (Even doing the work doesn't guarantee acceptance, but it improves the
> odds greatly over just posting ideas.)

LOL. IIRC, there have been cases where you and/or Andrei have actually tried
to get folks to do specific stuff, and it generally hasn't worked. Pretty
much everything that gets done around here is because someone steps and does
it.

Regardless, because we're all doing this in our free time, what everyone
does is going to be highly influenced by what they're interested in or what
they need. This does unfortunately tend to result in a number of things not
getting done that really should get done (in addition to the issues with
everyone finding enough time to do what they're trying to do or whether
there are enough people to do what needs doing), but we've gotten a lot of
good stuff done around here, because someone decided to step up and champion
something, and for better or worse, if no one steps up to champion
something, odds are, it doesn't get done.

- Jonathan M Davis

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

On 4/10/2017 3:58 AM, Nick B wrote:

Somebody has to work on it to move it forward - who do you propose should do
it? We don't have a team anywhere whose job it is to create detailed proposals
based on other peoples' ideas (which appear in the forum every day). Things
rarely move forward unless a champion for it self-selects with the will and
motivation to push it relentlessly.


That sets a high bar. Can you give an example when this has worked well, or have
they been mostly minor changes?


There are many. A random sampling:

Daniel Murphy - moving front end to D
Jacob Carlborg - Objective C support
Stephan Koch - newCTFE
Brad Roberts - autotester, bugzilla
the gdc and ldc teams
Rainer Schutze - GC work, Visual Studio support
Martin Nowak - the releases
Ali Cehreli - book on D
Adam Ruppe - book on D
Jan Knepper - the dlang site server

And a LOT more.

None of them are doing what I told them to do. I didn't pick any of them. They 
are all self-selected champions. They are what moves D forward.


Pragmatically speaking, the champions are the ones with the most say, because 
they do the work.


(Even doing the work doesn't guarantee acceptance, but it improves the odds 
greatly over just posting ideas.)

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Nick B via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 6 April 2017 at 19:27:50 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:


We commit to be more formal about the process, but overall it 
is correct that we have more say in what gets in the language. 
Allow me to add a couple of things.


First, this is the way things are commonly done in language 
design - a small committee defines a formal process and 
ultimately decides on features. In fact it is unusual that we 
put up unfinished ideas up for discussion, which we hope has 
the raises the level of responsibility in the community. I 
understand how what we did has been misunderstood as us just 
considering ourselves exempt from the due process. We have a 
very strong interest to follow a formal process and have the 
trail serve as a template to follow. (That intent is visible in 
https://github.com/dlang/DIPs/blob/master/DIPs/DIP1005.md as 
well, with the unexpected twist of an interesting idea that 
obsoleted it. The idea has come from Daniel Nielsen in this 
forum and has been adapted with credit in 
https://github.com/dlang/druntime/pull/1756.)


Second, we are very much open to increasing the size of our 
committee. This is already happening - it is obvious that known 
strong contributors with a good track record and who make 
consistently valuable have a huge impact on the language and 
library definition. Fortunately we have quite a few of those. 
In contrast, our attention is more difficult to be commanded by 
commentators who have little history of pull requests, 
good-quality DIPs, articles etc. and attempt to strong-arm us 
into pursuing underspecified ideas.


Third, all of this is a process not an immutable status. We are 
learning leadership on the job, and although I think we have 
made large strides since only e.g. one year ago, there is much 
more to improve. Expect more changes in the future and please 
bear with us and grant us your understanding as we are getting 
the hang of it.


Thank you for the detailed reply.  It helps the understanding by 
the community.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Nick B via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 6 April 2017 at 19:17:53 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

There's one big difference. The proposal I put forth is fairly 
complete, and I am well along implementing it. deadalnix's 
requires a great deal of further work just to figure out what 
it means - as presented, it is not much more than an idea.


Nor is it a simple idea. It will upend D's type system. It'll 
likely affect much of the semantic code in the compiler, and 
will require a lot of retrofitting in Phobos. Who knows how 
extensive that will be.


I understand. It was a major change, and you likely felt the 
risks were not worth it.


I don't know any language process that would accept it as it 
stands - it would get bounced back with "needs more work".


Yes, but if you had detailed which areas, he might of been more 
receptive.


Somebody has to work on it to move it forward - who do you 
propose should do it? We don't have a team anywhere whose job 
it is to create detailed proposals based on other peoples' 
ideas (which appear in the forum every day). Things rarely move 
forward unless a champion for it self-selects with the will and 
motivation to push it relentlessly.


That sets a high bar. Can you give an example when this has 
worked well, or have they been mostly minor changes?


(The general attitude of the C++ committee is if no champion 
emerges for a proposal that is willing to fix it and address 
all concerns about it and fight for it, then the proposal is 
not worth considering. It works for them.)


So this is your and Andreis approach? If so, perhaps you want to 
document it, so everyone understands.


If you or anyone else wants to be the champion for deadalnix's 
idea, I encourage you to do so. Collaborate here or in any way 
that works for you. I'm not going to shut you or anyone down on 
such discussions. I have already done a review of it and 
identified where it needs more work, so the next step is up to 
you.


No, its his big idea, and I don't understand it well enough to 
push it.
But I also think that your vision of the language, seems to be 
fluid at present, with the requirements to support a GC, ARC, and 
the ability to remove the run-time. Again perhaps you and Andrei 
want to confirm this direction.


My intent for this post, was to bring to both your attentions, 
how this was perceived by the outsiders/community, and a 
perceived (if incorrect) double standard. That was all.


(I also did not submit it as a DIP because the DIP process at 
the time was in limbo due to Dicebot exiting it. Now that Mike 
Parker is the new DIP czar, things should be moving again.)


Good to hear.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Dibyendu Majumdar via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 6 April 2017 at 07:24:28 UTC, Nick B wrote:
But, it seems that while Walter and Andrei are prepared to put 
a proposal out on the newsgroup, and then discuss it with the 
community, and then LATER, if its any good,

state they will formally document it into a DIP.

For the community, it seems different rules apply. In-depth 
news-groups discussions for new proposals are firstly 
encouraged and then later discouraged, with the ultimate
response that the proposal MUST be in the form of a 
time-consuming DIP, to be considered, even if it will 
ultimately wastes everyone time, and cause resentment in the 
community.


Hi,

I am only familiar with the Lua world from a language design 
point of view - in that world, only the Lua core team decide what 
features can go into the language. In fact they don't even accept 
code contributions - everything is coded by the core team - even 
when they accept an idea.


I don't think a language can be designed by a committee. My 
impression is that Walter is very decent about replying to 
criticisms, even though there is no need in my view for him to do 
so.


I would in fact urge the D team to make it explicit that D 
language design rests solely Walter and Andrei - and while others 
can make suggestions as to what should go in, only Walter and 
Andrei decide what actually goes in.


Regards
Dibyendu

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d]

On 4/6/17 1:56 PM, bachmeier wrote:

On Thursday, 6 April 2017 at 13:55:43 UTC, Olivier FAURE wrote:

I don't want to make any assumptions, and I do respect Walter for 
consistently taking on a role that means that people keep criticizing 
his choices whatever he does, but his approach to dealing with the 
community is undeniably flawed, and seems to be breeding a lot of 
frustration and resentment.


IMO the source of the problem is that Walter and Andrei have freedom to 
make any language changes they want, without even consulting the 
community, while everyone else has to put a lot of time into a formal 
proposal with nearly a 100% chance that it will be denied because of 
[insert your favorite reason].


We commit to be more formal about the process, but overall it is correct 
that we have more say in what gets in the language. Allow me to add a 
couple of things.


First, this is the way things are commonly done in language design - a 
small committee defines a formal process and ultimately decides on 
features. In fact it is unusual that we put up unfinished ideas up for 
discussion, which we hope has the raises the level of responsibility in 
the community. I understand how what we did has been misunderstood as us 
just considering ourselves exempt from the due process. We have a very 
strong interest to follow a formal process and have the trail serve as a 
template to follow. (That intent is visible in 
https://github.com/dlang/DIPs/blob/master/DIPs/DIP1005.md as well, with 
the unexpected twist of an interesting idea that obsoleted it. The idea 
has come from Daniel Nielsen in this forum and has been adapted with 
credit in https://github.com/dlang/druntime/pull/1756.)


Second, we are very much open to increasing the size of our committee. 
This is already happening - it is obvious that known strong contributors 
with a good track record and who make consistently valuable have a huge 
impact on the language and library definition. Fortunately we have quite 
a few of those. In contrast, our attention is more difficult to be 
commanded by commentators who have little history of pull requests, 
good-quality DIPs, articles etc. and attempt to strong-arm us into 
pursuing underspecified ideas.


Third, all of this is a process not an immutable status. We are learning 
leadership on the job, and although I think we have made large strides 
since only e.g. one year ago, there is much more to improve. Expect more 
changes in the future and please bear with us and grant us your 
understanding as we are getting the hang of it.



Andrei

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

On 4/6/2017 12:24 AM, Nick B wrote:
> For the community, it seems different rules apply. In-depth news-groups
> discussions for new proposals are firstly encouraged and then later 
discouraged,
> with the ultimate
> response that the proposal MUST be in the form of a time-consuming DIP, to be
> considered, even if it will ultimately wastes everyone time, and cause
> resentment in the community.

There's one big difference. The proposal I put forth is fairly complete, and I 
am well along implementing it. deadalnix's requires a great deal of further work 
just to figure out what it means - as presented, it is not much more than an idea.


Nor is it a simple idea. It will upend D's type system. It'll likely affect much 
of the semantic code in the compiler, and will require a lot of retrofitting in 
Phobos. Who knows how extensive that will be.


I don't know any language process that would accept it as it stands - it would 
get bounced back with "needs more work". Somebody has to work on it to move it 
forward - who do you propose should do it? We don't have a team anywhere whose 
job it is to create detailed proposals based on other peoples' ideas (which 
appear in the forum every day). Things rarely move forward unless a champion for 
it self-selects with the will and motivation to push it relentlessly.


(The general attitude of the C++ committee is if no champion emerges for a 
proposal that is willing to fix it and address all concerns about it and fight 
for it, then the proposal is not worth considering. It works for them.)


If you or anyone else wants to be the champion for deadalnix's idea, I encourage 
you to do so. Collaborate here or in any way that works for you. I'm not going 
to shut you or anyone down on such discussions. I have already done a review of 
it and identified where it needs more work, so the next step is up to you.


(I also did not submit it as a DIP because the DIP process at the time was in 
limbo due to Dicebot exiting it. Now that Mike Parker is the new DIP czar, 
things should be moving again.)

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[bachmeier via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 6 April 2017 at 13:55:43 UTC, Olivier FAURE wrote:

I don't want to make any assumptions, and I do respect Walter 
for consistently taking on a role that means that people keep 
criticizing his choices whatever he does, but his approach to 
dealing with the community is undeniably flawed, and seems to 
be breeding a lot of frustration and resentment.


IMO the source of the problem is that Walter and Andrei have 
freedom to make any language changes they want, without even 
consulting the community, while everyone else has to put a lot of 
time into a formal proposal with nearly a 100% chance that it 
will be denied because of [insert your favorite reason]. The 
design of the language is done in something of a corporate 
fashion, and that leads to frustrated posts.*


* But not from me.

Re: Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Olivier FAURE via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 6 April 2017 at 07:24:28 UTC, Nick B wrote:
I'm going to address this post to Walter and Andrei, as the 
joint captains of the D ship, so to speak.


[...]

For the community, it seems different rules apply. In-depth 
news-groups discussions for new proposals are firstly 
encouraged and then later discouraged, with the ultimate
response that the proposal MUST be in the form of a 
time-consuming DIP, to be considered, even if it will 
ultimately wastes everyone time, and cause resentment in the 
community.


Agreed.

I don't want to make any assumptions, and I do respect Walter for 
consistently taking on a role that means that people keep 
criticizing his choices whatever he does, but his approach to 
dealing with the community is undeniably flawed, and seems to be 
breeding a lot of frustration and resentment.


My personal example is from a discussion we had in February about 
'return scope', where Walter Bright asked deadalnix to explain 
his case, and explain the problems he saw. At the time, deadalnix 
(and other users) replied that they didn't want to make their 
cases, because they had already done so in the past, and they 
expected Walter to ignore whatever they would tell him.


http://forum.dlang.org/post/o6h3re$26lo$1...@digitalmars.com

I outlined several problems I saw with return scope, and Walter 
replied to my post, answering each point I made. And while it's 
commendable that Walter took the time to do it, those answers 
felt extremely frustrating to me; Walter did *not* address my 
points, and did not take what I was saying seriously. As an 
example, one of the problems I pointed out was:


It only addresses cases where a reference might be escaped 
through a single return value; it doesn't address escaping 
through 'out' parameters,


The following conversation ensued:

Walter:
Yes it does (the general case is storing a value into any data 
structure pointed to by an argument).


Me:
I don't understand. Let's say I have an arbitrary class 
'Container', and I want a function that stores a pointer to an 
int in this container, in a way that lets the function's caller 
know that the int* given to it will last only as long as the 
container, and I want to do it without return values. The 
prototype would be akin to


void store(ref  Container cont,  
int* ptr);


And the code it would be used in would look like:

{
scope Container c;
scope int*  ptr = ...;

store(c, ptr);
}

What would the syntax be?


Walter:

c.ptr = ptr;

You can also do:

ref Container store(ref return scope c, return scope int* 
ptr);


The rest of the conversation basically went like this:
Me: This isn't possible, or if it is, it shouldn't be.
Walter: Yes it is. It compiles.
Me: Okay, but it shouldn't compile, because it make [invalid 
write error] possible.

Walter: Well, it doesn't compile with @safe.
Me: Yes, it does compile with @safe, and no, it shouldn't, and my 
point from the beginning was that your model made that kind of 
function impossible. Why do you think we're even talking about 
this?


In short, Walter asked for people to give their opinions on the 
subject; but when I did give my opinion, Walter did not take my 
points seriously, and basically assumed that the only reason I 
disagreed with him was that I didn't understand the subject as 
well as he did. Other people (including Dicebot) have complained 
about that.


This was a very frustrating experience, and I did not want to 
participate in the discussions about Dlang any further after that.


Look, again, I feel bad trash-talking Walter. He's putting a lot 
of effort into this. But he's clearly really, really bad at 
listening to other people. This has to be addressed at some point.

Walter and Andrei and community relationship management

[Nick B via Digitalmars-d]

I'm going to address this post to Walter and Andrei, as the joint 
captains of the D ship, so to speak.



As an outsider I can see there are two major issues, at play, at 
present, in this series of threads.


1. The technical proposals and arguments for x & y, or against x 
& y. On one side is Walter & Andrei with Walters proposal, and 
the other is Deadalnix.


2. The relationship management, between the co-captains and the 
community. And the perception of the different rules for the 
captains verses the community, which causes

resentment, and friction, to members of this community.

I'm not going to discuss item 1 in-depth, because item 2 is far 
more important.


So let's go back to the beginning.



Andrei starts a thread, 4 days ago, titled 'Exceptions in @nogc 
code'.


"Walter and I discussed the following promising setup:

Use "throw new scope Exception" from @nogc code. That will 
cause the exception to be allocated in a special stack-like 
region.


If the catching code uses "catch (scope Exception obj)", then 
a reference to the exception thus created will be passed to 
catch. At the end of the catch block there's
no outstanding reference to "obj" so it will be freed. All @nogc 
code must use this form of catch.


If the catching code uses "catch (Exception obj)", the 
exception is cloned on the gc heap and then freed.


Finally, if an exception is thrown with "throw new Exception" 
it can be caught with "catch (scope Exception obj)" by copying 
the exception from the heap into the special region, and then 
freeing the exception on the heap.


Such a scheme preserves backward compatibility and leverages 
the work done on "scope".





Deadalnix enters the discussion in Andrei's thread, with:

"It doesn't need any kind of throw new scope Exception, and 
was proposed, literally, years ago during discussion around DIP25 
and alike.


I urge you to reconsider the proposal that were made at the 
time. They solve all the problems you are discovering now, and 
more. And, while more complex that DIP25
alone, considering DIP25+DIP1000+this thing+the RC object thing, 
you are already in the zone where the "simple" approach is not so 
simple already.


Things are unfolding exactly as predicted at the time. Ad hoc 
solutions to various problems are proposed one by one and the 
overall complexity is growing much larger

than initially proposed solutions."

Others (Eugene Wissner & Dmitry Olshansky) also comment on the 
proposed syntax.


Walters responds to Deadalnix by asking for more details:

> It doesn't need any kind of throw new scope Exception, and 
was proposed,
> literally, years ago during discussion around DIP25 and 
alike.


"A link to that proposal would be appreciated."

Walter adds an additional requirement in response to Deadalnix

"This does not address the stated need (by many programmers) 
to not even have to link in the GC code. A solution that falls 
short of this will be rejected. The
rejections may not be technically well founded, but we're not in 
a good position to try to educate the masses on this. A solution 
that does not require linking to the GC

sidesteps that problem."

Walter then adds the following:

>  I urge you to reconsider the proposal that were made at 
the time. They solve all
> the problems you are discovering now, and more. And, while 
more complex that
> DIP25 alone, considering DIP25+DIP1000+this thing+the RC 
object thing, you are
> already in the zone where the "simple" approach is not so 
simple already.


"I did some searching for this previous proposal discussion, 
but could not find it. Instead, I'll go by your description of it 
here.


I've written a more fleshed out proposal and started a new 
thread with it. Feel free to rip it to shreds! "



Walter then starts a new thread, 3 days ago, titled: Proposal: 
"Exceptions and @nogc". Within the post he lays sub-headings out: 
Problem; Solution; throw Expression; catch


(Exception e); Chained Exceptions; Copying Exceptions; Legacy 
Code Breakage; Conclusion; and References. It's like a DIP in 
structure, but its NOT a formal DIP.


Walters replies to a request by Rikki Cattermole for a DIP.

>And as probably expected, DIP please. Its a big set of 
changes and warrants

> documenting in that form.

"If it survives the n.g. discussion I will. Though the DIP 
process is in limbo at the moment since Dicebot is no longer 
running it."


Here Walter is saying, lets discuss it thoroughly on the n.g. and 
then LATER, if it's any good, he will formal put it into a DIP.

Fair enough.


Discussions continue.

Deadalix then composes a long reply, in Andreis thread, to 
Walters request. He is hopeful he will be heard:


"The forum search isn't returning anything useful so I'm not 
sure how to get that link. However, it goes