Final by default?

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 3/13/14, 10:21 AM, Paolo Invernizzi wrote:
> On Thursday, 13 March 2014 at 16:41:32 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> On 3/13/14, 9:23 AM, Daniel Murphy wrote:
>>
>>> This thread has had people from several 'industry' D users stating that
>>> they do not have a problem with well planned breaking changes, and I'm
>>> not sure why you feel differently about this.
>>
>> I have seen those messages as well. I have argued at length why I feel
>> differently about this, including how I see the numbers working in
>> this forum. As far as I can tell you are not convinced, so repeating
>> those arguments would not help.
>
> I think that this it's a bit unfair.
>
> Just to be clear, we have committed a lot of money and effort in the D
> programming language, "smelling" years ago that it could be a
> competitive advantage over other choices.

I think that holds regardless of the decision in this particular matter.

> Told that, I'm following the forum as this is by far the best way to
> reinforce of undermine my past decision (and sleep well at night!)
> That why I think that, IMHO, companies that adopted D "seriously" are
> present here, and are lurking.

I don't think so. This isn't the case for my employer, and hasn't been 
the case historically for a lot of the companies using other languages. 
I have plenty of experience with forum dynamics to draw from.

> Just to give a perspective, we are not so big like Sociomantic but we
> are making some $M, so for us the decision was not a joke.

Again, it's unlikely the decision would have been in other way affected 
by a minor language design detail.

The matter is you seem convinced final would improve your use of D, and 
therefore are unhappy with the decision. For those who aren't, we'd seem 
flaky by breaking their code.

> And to be honest what it's really scaring it's not the frequency of the
> "planned improvement" of the language, but that a feeling turned  "a
> solid piece of evidence" [1] into smoke. Today is virtual, tomorrow how
> knows?
>
> That's my feedback for the community, and for the two leaders.
>
> - Paolo
>
> [1]
> http://forum.dlang.org/thread/yzsqwejxqlnzryhrkfuq@forum.dlang.org?page=23#post-koo65g:241nqs:242:40digitalmars.com

Now I think you're being unfair. Yes, it was a good piece of evidence. 
And yes, it turned out to be not enough. It's that simple and that 
visible. What, are Walter and me doing cover-up machinations now???

There must be a way to convey that a decision has been made. It is 
understood it won't please everybody, just like going the other way 
won't please everybody. Please let me know what that way is.


Thanks,

Andrei