iterators again

[David B. Held]

Jarrett Billingsley wrote:
> "Frits van Bommel" <fvbommel at REMwOVExCAPSs.nl> wrote in message 
> news:f3eond$146l$1 at digitalmars.com...
> 
>> IIRC David talks to Alexei (and Walter?) IRL...
> 
> That's good to know, but it would be _fantastic_ if the results of their 
> little brainstorming sessions were made public, or if the sessions 
> themselves were.  It's very frustrating that this tiny core group of people 
> is driving the development of D with little to no interaction with the rest 
> of the users.  Don't get me wrong -- I really like that structs are being 
> improved, I just don't like being in the dark, and I would imagine few 
> people do. 

If you want D to develop as quickly as C++, then Design by Committee is 
a great idea.  When does C++0x come out?  2009?  If you want to hear the 
status straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak, move to Seattle, 
where you can stalk him in person. ;)

If you notice, Walter does solicit public feedback directly from time to 
time, but you may also notice that it takes a long time for a feature to 
go from idea to implementation.  If he announced every thought he or 
someone else had about a feature while it was being designed, you'd find 
that most of it is noise or confusing.  If you multiply that by the 
number of people on the NG, I guarantee that absolutely nothing would 
get done.  It's simply a matter of pragmatism to meet with people 
face-to-face to help flesh out ideas, because the bandwidth is much 
higher and it's easier to filter out the noise.

But I will say this: Walter is influenced more by libraries that he 
thinks are cool or important than by many other considerations, and 
insists that features those libraries need to survive and thrive be 
given extra priority.  So people who want to lobby for a pet feature can 
do so most effectively by producing a significant library that 
demonstrates the need for the feature.  It seems only natural that if 
there isn't a significant use case, the value of a feature is unproven.

Dave