Hmm - about manifest/enum

[Lars Ivar Igesund]

Walter Bright wrote:

> Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
>> It is hard to try to be involved (in any capacity) with D language
>> evolution when there are silent (or rather non-public) opinions that
>> weighs more than this newsgroup, and I think as people on the newsgroup
>> figures this out, it will be a loss for D.
> 
> It is not that various opinions weigh more. It is more trying to pick
> the best possible course of action. Note that I do my best to argue the
> cases based on their merits, not based on votes. Consider that after the
> feedback in this group, the first two const regimes were scrapped. You
> guys made a convincing argument that it was confusing, overly complex,
> and basically sucked.
> 
>> In earlier situations that are similar to this one, it has always looked
>> like the unvocal persons are C++-users, thus we end up in a very C++
>> inspired language when that often is definately not what we want.
> 
> const in D is very unlike const in C++.
> 
>> Most C++-users I know refuse to even acknowledge that C++ is bad.
> 
> Interestingly, many C++ users I know will not publicly acknowledge the
> flaws in C++. Off the record, though, they say very different things.
> People do not want to damage their careers built up around C++. There
> are some pretty high level C++ experts who have been privately very
> helpful to me in explaining how to do things right.

I am not really attacking your integrity here, although I guess it sounds
like it most of the time. My point is more to the fact that the
argumentation that in the end leads to how something is implemented, often
is kept (intentionally or not) from the public, leading to the impression
that you from time to time make arbitrary decisions.

This wouldn't necessarily be that big a problem if you could convey the
actual argumentation to the newsgroup in a convincing manner. For the
enum/manifest constant case I dare to say that you have failed to do that
as I have yet to see a reply to your argumentation going like this "Ah,
you're right!". There's been a few of "Hmm, I guess I'll accept it ...",
but no turnarounds.

Again, in this case it is not about functionality, as all seems to agree we
want manifest constants (I certainly do), just about looks and whether the
scheme will be confusing or not. In the discussion of C++, it is my opinion
that although D is improving upon C++, the masses that it would be nice to
pull in come from the VM (Java, C#) world and they won't have any
understanding for design decisions based on conventions in C++.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango