Re: DConf 2019 AGM Livestream
On Saturday, 11 May 2019 at 07:53:36 UTC, Mike Parker wrote: Anyone interested in the AGM can watch it at the following link. You can leave feedback there, in IRC, or in Discord. https://youtu.be/cpTAtiboIDs Will there be a plan to revive the dip 1017 - add a Bottom type and submit a stronger proposal thanks to the Human Resource Fund?
Re: bool (was DConf 2019 AGM Livestream)
On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 01:20:16PM +, Mike Franklin via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote: [...] > If anyone's looking for a challenge, I welcome them to propose a new > `Bool` type (note the capital B) for inclusion in my new library. [...] As long as && and || continue to evaluate to a 1-bit integer, all library efforts to implement Bool will be futile. T -- Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. -- Napoleon Bonaparte
Re: bool (was DConf 2019 AGM Livestream)
On Sunday, 12 May 2019 at 10:58:49 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: Bringing it up over and over again, like a perennial fight in a marriage, with the hope of finally convincing the spouse on the wrongness of their views - that all is wasted time. There's a bunch of big rocks to move. I take it from this response you mean, once a DIP is rejected it would never be looked at again, even if a second DIP was created for the same purpose with different arguments? So changes like this one should be reversed then? https://github.com/dlang/phobos/pull/5343 And isIntegral should also be updated to include bool? Where is the line drawn? Should it be treated like an integral only in the language but not in phobos?
Re: bool (was DConf 2019 AGM Livestream)
On Sunday, 12 May 2019 at 14:50:33 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: On 5/12/19 1:34 PM, Nicholas Wilson wrote: However in this case the community consensus is that the chain of reasoning you have used to arrive at your decision is wrong. It's a simple enough matter to be understood, and reasonable to assume Walter is not missing any important facts or details. Poking holes in his explanations is, I confess, attractive, but ultimately are about debate skills rather than technical. I do agree that the way explanations on DIP decisions go could and should be improved a lot. Then let me rephrase my complaints as a question (to you, Walter and the community): At what level of egregiousness of the degree to which the unanimous community consensus believes both your decision and chain of reasoning are fundamentally wrong, do we, the community, decide to reject your position completely and implement the community consensus?
Re: bool (was DConf 2019 AGM Livestream)
On Sunday, 12 May 2019 at 17:08:49 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote: ... snip ... Fortunately, in the grand scheme of things, while this issue does matter, it's still much smaller than almost all of the issues that we have to worry about and consider having DIPs for. Personally, I'm not at all happy that this DIP was rejected, but I think that continued debate on it is a waste of everyone's time. Agreed. I too have never liked numeric values equated to true/false, in any programming language. However, it is very common. And, relative to other the big ticket items on the table, of minor importance. Changing the current behavior won't materially affect the usability of D or its future. This is a case where the best course is to make a decision move on. --Jon
Re: bool (was DConf 2019 AGM Livestream)
On Sunday, May 12, 2019 8:50:33 AM MDT Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars- d-announce wrote: > On 5/12/19 1:34 PM, Nicholas Wilson wrote: > > However in this case the community consensus is that the chain of > > reasoning you have used to arrive at your decision is wrong. > > It's a simple enough matter to be understood, and reasonable to assume > Walter is not missing any important facts or details. Poking holes in > his explanations is, I confess, attractive, but ultimately are about > debate skills rather than technical. I do agree that the way > explanations on DIP decisions go could and should be improved a lot. Really, what it comes down to is that Walter has a very different view on what a bool is and what it means than many in the community. His explanation makes it clear why he made the decision that he made. Many of us don't agree with the decision, because we view bool and its purpose very differently, but unless someone has an argument that would actually convince Walter to look at bools differently, it's a pretty pointless discussion. It's frustrating, and many of us do think that D is worse than it could be because of the decision, but ultimately, Walter is the one in charge, and that's just how it goes. This just highlights how the language is ultimately controlled by the one or two people at the top and not by the community at large. It's not a democracy, which on the whole is a good thing. If all language decisions were made by majority vote, the language would be an utter mess. But that does have the downside that sometimes something that many people want doesn't happen, because those in charge don't agree. Such is life. Fortunately, in the grand scheme of things, while this issue does matter, it's still much smaller than almost all of the issues that we have to worry about and consider having DIPs for. Personally, I'm not at all happy that this DIP was rejected, but I think that continued debate on it is a waste of everyone's time. - Jonathan M Davis
Re: bool (was DConf 2019 AGM Livestream)
On 5/12/19 1:34 PM, Nicholas Wilson wrote: However in this case the community consensus is that the chain of reasoning you have used to arrive at your decision is wrong. It's a simple enough matter to be understood, and reasonable to assume Walter is not missing any important facts or details. Poking holes in his explanations is, I confess, attractive, but ultimately are about debate skills rather than technical. I do agree that the way explanations on DIP decisions go could and should be improved a lot.
Re: bool (was DConf 2019 AGM Livestream)
On Saturday, 11 May 2019 at 20:35:40 UTC, Exil wrote: Sure it is convenient to have some properties of bool also be similar to an integer, but it can definitely not be swapped in to be used like a 1-bit integer and there are already plenty of special rules for it. Thanks for that analysis. So we have a bool that is neither a boolean nor a bit. That stinks. Walter and Andrei have made their decision, so it doesn't look like we'll be able to do anything about it unless maybe Atila feels that it's something that needs to be addressed. Anyway, I'm of the mind that the language should just provide a set of powerful, composable primitives and delegate course-grained features and specializations to the library. I've been re-imagining druntime and phobos at lot lately and I'm more confident that we can define a wrapper around `bool` to give it proper boolean semantics. Maybe, if Walter would support it, we could then fix bool to make it a proper `bit`. Then in the library `alias bit = bool;` and live happily ever after. If anyone's looking for a challenge, I welcome them to propose a new `Bool` type (note the capital B) for inclusion in my new library. Mike
Re: bool (was DConf 2019 AGM Livestream)
On Sunday, 12 May 2019 at 10:58:49 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: Rejected D Improvement Proposals on small matters that D language's leader thinks strongly about should allow everybody to move on to larger, better things. We are unable to, and should not be required to, provide argumentation when making a decision on a DIP that will be to the satisfaction of everybody involved. No no no, no. No. You have rejected the DIP to the annoyance of the community, That is fine. You have a decision making process. However in this case the community consensus is that the chain of reasoning you have used to arrive at your decision is wrong. Of course, pressure does exist on making the right decision and on framing it properly; Indeed, you should be making the right decisions _ for the right reasons_. I note that this is uncorrelated with wether or not we want the feature, c.f. refcounting before we had copy constructors (wanted it but couldn't have it because memory safety reasons) and opPostMove (didn't want to have to have it but e.g. couldn't interface with GCC's std::string). otherwise, one poor decision after another, we end up with a bad language that people will not want to use. Yes, but for the completely opposite reason. If the community believe the reasoning you provide for the decision you have made is wrong then we will end up with a language we not as satisfied with. [Because reasons] that all is wasted time. There's a bunch of big rocks to move. Jut because we have a bunch of other large problems does not mean that we shouldn't be fixing other problems in the language that you happen to disagree with.
Re: bool (was DConf 2019 AGM Livestream)
On 5/12/19 11:27 AM, Isaac S. wrote: This is the crux of the argument: *How* does making bool an integer add to the language? The crux of the argument is there was a D Improvement Proposal on a small language change, and it was rejected. Rejected D Improvement Proposals on small matters that D language's leader thinks strongly about should allow everybody to move on to larger, better things. We are unable to, and should not be required to, provide argumentation when making a decision on a DIP that will be to the satisfaction of everybody involved. Of course, pressure does exist on making the right decision and on framing it properly; otherwise, one poor decision after another, we end up with a bad language that people will not want to use. Walter's last argument in this thread is poorly made and has several factual errors. He's traveling and with a bunch of stuff going on right after DConf. But the larger point is it doesn't matter - the DIP was looked at and rejected (I should add I concurred with the decision and still do). Bringing it up over and over again, like a perennial fight in a marriage, with the hope of finally convincing the spouse on the wrongness of their views - that all is wasted time. There's a bunch of big rocks to move.
Re: bool (was DConf 2019 AGM Livestream)
On Sunday, 12 May 2019 at 05:43:01 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
On 5/11/2019 7:27 PM, Mike Franklin wrote:
I understand. Every programmer, sooner or later, decides to
step up and take a swing at inventing boolean. (I have too -
did you know that D used to have a `bit` builtin type?)
Yes, D did have a bit type that was removed since it required
special casing for something that didn't provide much of a
benefit.
The programming landscape is littered with the corpses of one
after another.
You say the programming landscape, yet give very limited
examples. It would help to give examples in languages that did
not have a hindered boolean type. In languages with a
non-hindered boolean (e.g. Java) I've only ever seen custom
booleans for overloading or to flag intent when named arguments
are unsupported.
Phobos has multiple ones
Well... yes, this is Phobos; Phobos is in need of a cleanup.
RefCountedAutoInitialize .yes and .no
Something like this is probably a remnant of code made before
std.typecons.Flag. It shouldn't have gotten into Phobos
(regardless of if it was before or after std.typecons.Flag).
and even a struct Yes and a struct No.
The structs Flag, Yes, and No should not be considered by
themselves as they are all apart of the same concept. The Flag
concept is to force a caller to explicitly state what true/false
mean. This is desired due to the lack of named arguments in D.
std.bitmanip has an enum A{True,False}. std.json has enum
E{True=true}.
In unittests they do. The std.bitmanip is most likely
overzealously testing something (1-bit sized enum?). The std.json
one is obviously testing if an enum with an underlying boolean
value is correctly converted.
std.typecons has the bizarre enum issue10647_isAlwaysTrue=true;.
Yes, that is bizarre. Considering its a enum constant of type
bool, this doesn't pertain to custom boolean types.
The C++ Committee currently is fiercely debating adding a
"Boolean" construct in one of the longest threads I've ever
seen. One of their problems is it conflicts with the endless
"Boolean" types added to existing C++ code, along with every
variation "Bool", "Bool", "boolean", etc.
All this effort strongly implies that there's no such thing as
a satisfactory bool type.
No, this implies C++ had a boolean type that was lacking; which
it *severely* is in type safety.
There are multiple booleans in C++ because programmers are not
going to unite on one *non-standard* boolean type. Even if the
committee added one, it will take years for the damage to be
undone (if ever).
Will you succeed where 10,000 other programmers have failed?
Seems unlikely. But I doubt I will dissuade you from trying.
Well other than the overstatement on reinventing the boolean; I
do agree here that success is unlikely, but not for the same
reason. A custom boolean type will be used infrequently (I'm
certainly not depending on a dub package just for a boolean
type), will have to be imported in *every* file it is used in,
and will inevitably fracture whenever someone copies the code to
their codebase.
So what does work reasonably?
Treating it like a small integer.
So mixing the concepts of true/false and numerical data is
"reasonable". I'll have to remember that if I ever have a
true/false test; 1's and 0's are quicker to write than T's and
F's.
Jokes aside, I have yet to see how making it a "small integer"
improves this supposed reinventing-the-bool-wheel problem or
makes it anymore useful than a normal boolean. In fact, it seems
more-so like you've made a oval wheel: technically functional but
not really.
I know the operator ++ difference, and it is my fault that I
succumbed to a moment of boolean madness and allowed that in.
(++ on D bool is saturation arithmetic, unlike the overflow
semantics in every other integer type. It is a mistake, please
don't use that as justification for adding more quirky
behaviors.)
I don't have to justify other quirky behavior with ++ being
saturated arithmetic because you said:
Treating it like a small integer.
If bool is going to be a 1-bit integer with saturated arithmetic
semantics, then it should act like one. +=, -=, *=, ^^=, /=, and
%= should be allowed as it is a "small integer". Sure /= and %=
would largely be a divide-by-zero operation, but at least bool
would be the type unsafe "integer" it is suppose to be.
We know what the various integer semantics are, and it fits
right in with that.
I have yet to see where bool fits into integer semantics
reasonably without causing problems and annoyances (as well as
having just generally weird behavior).
On a final note, C++ added a std::vector special case,
which works unlike any other vector type. Years of experience
have shown that to have been a mistake, just like all the
others, and it is widely derided as a complete failure.
That isn't a fault of bool by any means, that is the fault of
making an unnecessary
Re: bool (was DConf 2019 AGM Livestream)
On 5/12/19 1:43 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
On 5/11/2019 7:27 PM, Mike Franklin wrote:
I think Walter is conflating how bool is stored in memory with its
semantics.
That's exactly what I'm deliberately doing.
I'm currently considering using D's rich modeling features to create a
new boolean type that behaves more like a boolean and less like a
bit. But it's unfortunate and disappointing we have to resort to
something like that.
I understand. Every programmer, sooner or later, decides to step up and
take a swing at inventing boolean.
No, not really. Only the ones using languages that either lack a
high-level notion of boolean or conflate it with an integer.
(I have too - did you know that D
used to have a `bit` builtin type?)
Yes. I remember those days. It was renamed "bool" to better reflect its
actual real-world use-cases.
The programming landscape is
littered with the corpses of one after another.
Only in languages that either lack a built-in bool or conflate it with
integers.
Phobos has multiple ones
- RefCountedAutoInitialize .yes and .no,
Basically the same as the "struct Yes and No" below...(and if it's
somehow *diffe rent* from the normal struct yes/no, then that sounds
like a very clear Phobos failing...)
and even a struct Yes and a
struct No.
Which Andrei *intentionally* created as a library-based substitute for
*named arguments*, if you'll recall without contorting the true history.
std.bitmanip has an enum A{True,False}. std.json has enum
E{True=true}. std.typecons has the bizarre enum
issue10647_isAlwaysTrue=true;.
> (One wonders what would happen if it was
> set to false. Would it cause a rip in the fabric of space-time? I dare
> not experiment with that!)
Yet more examples of how D either sucks at bool and/or needs named
arguments. Thus, completely failing to provide support for the patently
false "Every programmer, sooner or later, decides to [...] take a swing
at inventing boolean" claim.
The C++ Committee currently is fiercely debating adding a "Boolean"
construct in one of the longest threads I've ever seen. One of their
problems is it conflicts with the endless "Boolean" types added to
existing C++ code, along with every variation "Bool", "Bool", "boolean",
etc.
Alex, I'll take "Languages which conflate boolean with integer" for
$500, please...
Daily double
All this effort strongly implies that there's no such thing as a
satisfactory bool type.
Correction:
All this effort strongly implies that there's no such thing as a
satisfactory bool type *in languages which conflate booleans with integers*
On a final note, C++ added a std::vector special case, which works
unlike any other vector type. Years of experience have shown that to
have been a mistake, just like all the others, and it is widely derided
as a complete failure.
Ohh, I see..So...you're saying that special-casing an *aggregate* of a
type **cough**char**cough** is bad. And furthermore, that in turn,
demonstrates that the element type of a special-cased aggregate must
therefore be unsound as well.
Or is it that applying correct semantics to a type's aggregate without
also applying them to the type itself is a recipe for disaster?
