Final by default?

[H. S. Teoh]

On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 02:50:08PM -0700, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 3/13/2014 11:41 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> >2. There's the danger of getting into a design-by-committee rut.
> 
> Back in the early days of the C++ Standards committee, I recall some
> members negotiating in effect "vote for my proposal and I'll vote
> for yours". I don't see that as a great way to design a language.
> 
> Democratic committee processes also involve long, and I mean
> loooong, timespans for making decisions. Like 13 years from C++98 to
> C++11.

Democratic processes only work well if the least unpopular choice equals
the optimal choice. When this is not the case, it consistently produces
suboptimal results.

(I say "least unpopular", because it usually turns out that people in a
democratic system simply cannot come to an agreement, so the only way
forward is to find a choice that displeases everyone the least. This
leads to disappointing results when it comes to technical design.)


T

-- 
"I'm not childish; I'm just in touch with the child within!" - RL