Wait, what? What is AliasSeq?

Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d digitalmars-d at puremagic.com
Mon Jul 20 09:55:14 PDT 2015


On 7/20/15 11:54 AM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> Andrei/Walter should just step in and make the final call on whatever
> lousy name they wish (let's admit it, none of the names are any good,
> and you ain't gonna please everybody no matter what), and let's just
> move on.

That's what we did a few times in the past. It did help with limiting 
discussions and revisionist pull requests, but not as much as anyone 
would have liked.

It seems to me that subjecting new names to some community scrutiny 
before freezing them forever is a sensible thing to do. The difficulties 
are finding good definitions for "community" and "scrutiny". And "some" 
:o). From what I can tell:

* For any name considered, there is at least one person who strongly 
believes is an epically bad choice and presents vivid anecdotes, 
similes, and parallels with other languages and domains to support that 
opinion.

* For most names considered, there is at least one person who is a 
strong advocate and is convinced that's by far a better choice than all 
others.

* Whatever choice we make, there's a sort of atmosphere that a radically 
better name is just around the corner and we'll all regret having 
freezing it.

* There's a sort of Warhol effect in that naming discussions are 
massive, therefore they must be important, therefore they garner 
attention, therefore they get more massive.

I had vague hopes some clarity would emerge from opening up the process. 
Sadly this is one of those "welcome to the club" results. What I do hope 
happens is more appreciation of all involved of the difficulty of making 
decisions and judgment calls in matters in which there's no telling 
right from wrong. Please, please, please cut Walter and me some slack in 
the future.

I'll talk to him today in the hope we'll be able to put an end to this.


Andrei


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