Import concerns revisited

[John Reimer]

On Wed, 12 Jul 2006 01:00:32 -0700, Walter Bright  
<newshound at digitalmars.com> wrote:

>
> I spent about 8 hours yesterday writing posts here. There's only so much  
> I can do - especially since every post I write tends to generate a dozen  
> responses.
>
>
>> Assuming you're considering any change as a result of this  
>> conversation, perhaps the details could be settled explicitly, either  
>> here or in a separate thread?  I think everyone has said their piece at  
>> this point, and it would probably help everyone cool down a bit if  
>> things wrapped up with a suggested plan, even if the plan is to not  
>> change a thing for reasons X Y and Z.
>
> I agree with waiting until things cool down.


Cool down, yes. "Not change a thing for reason X Y and Z", however, is NOT
a good alternative. I would find that very disturbing considering all the
energy put into this discussion.  That would leave the current problem with
name collisions a chronic problem for D, and many, many hours wasted for
everyone.

Much of the problem here too is that people started swamping this thread
(and other related threads) with numerous ideas for new import constructs.
We don't really need 100 new ideas for a construct at this stage... more so
we need (1) admission that a problem exists with the current import system
and (2) commitment to a fix.

(This whole process of swamping this newsgroup with alternative constructs
has very poor track record.  I'm not saying alternatives shouldn't be
discussed, but it's rather useless to do in this sort of system.  Walter is
incapable of investigating and studying every possibility.  He can barely
can keep up with posts here. Nor can I, for that matter.)

Walter suggested a fix that really didn't appear palatable to a vast
majority of the people here, and yet he remained unconvinced of any
alternatives, despite some very good ones being put forward.  Most of us
agreed that we would settle for something else, almost anything else that
Walter chose as long as it (1) met certain basic criteria (ie no explicit
use of alias, no use of "static import"), (2) was somewhat elegant, and (3)
fixed the original import problem.  That was our compromise, as hard as it
was (even at the expense of losing selective imports which people agreed  
was
useful but perhaps not critical).

So now we finish with a decision by dictatorship (I'm not being cute here;
just stating the facts) with the same mess of decision by committee... I
think we got nowhere just as fast: that everybody should cool down and
perhaps nothing at all should be done after all.  I'm not impressed.

Not to say a committee is any good, but this is no better, in my opinion,  
in
that the situation exchanges multi-level bureaucracy for single-level
stonewalling, sieged mightily by numerous community members that seem
tricked into thinking that their numerous suggestions will make a
difference, meanwhile vying with each other over numerous construct
alternatives (if you can follow that sentence, you win a prize; it's about
as clear as what's going on in this thread).  Even Walter can't (nor should
he be expected to) keep up to all the discussion which makes this all a
literal rats nest of useless brainstorming.

Walter, you said in another response to my post that, anybody could have
forked D at any time via gdc.  And the implication was that nobody has done
it because they trust in your leadership.  If that's what you meant, I  
don't
think that's necessarily the case, and it seems somewhat presumptuous of  
you
to think that way.  I'd say that people are reticent to do that sort of
thing out of respect for a your intellectual investment: it seems like a
harsh move and /could/ cast doubt on the original authors ability to manage
a language's design.  I really think the community wants to give you the
benefit of the doubt.  We have no desire to mess with what might be the
progress of D.  So see people's reticence to fork as a /desire/ to trust...
not trust it self.

But as time goes on, and more people get doubts about D's evolution, you
surely are tempting people to do consider forking.  Maybe a fork shouldn't
be looked at in such dark and sinister way.  Perhaps you don't mind?  
Perhaps
you would love to see an alternative that could share the research of a
alternative constructs such that trials could migrate back into the  
original
D?  I'm not sure if you would mind that or not.  If that's acceptable to
you, I guess it could be a useful alternative for testing out new  
principles
in D.  And I'd certainly hope that such an idea could be conducted with
cooperation and respect to you.

Cooling down is a great idea, but doing so does nothing to erase the issues
we have faced, currently face, and continue to face with the way D's growth
is managed.

-JJR