OT: 'conduct unbecoming of a hacker'

[Laeeth Isharc via Digitalmars-d]

On Wednesday, 10 February 2016 at 17:17:40 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
wrote:
> Unfortunately, that sounds very similar to experiences I've had 
> here in D-land :( Gets very frustrating.

Yes - one trigger for posting it was the tone of some messages in 
some recent forum discussions (although it's really a tiny part 
of things on the whole).  'D is broken and needs a complete 
redesign', 'D has no chance against C# and Swift' etc.  Maybe, 
but grumbling isn't going to make it better, once the ground has 
been covered once.

I should they that although I have read his blog in the past, the 
trigger for reading that note was his commentary on the nanomsg 
hoohah (please - let's discuss that on another thread if 
necessary, not on this  one).  And that's the project he was 
referring to in this note.  I don't know all the details there, 
but I think his broader point about the decline of hacker culture 
is a much stronger one than the specific application he makes 
with nanomsg (my take would be a bit different).

[I'm not really able to judge situation as regards pull requests 
for D, although I wonder sometimes about type 1 vs type 2 errors 
and the balance between maintaining high standards and letting 
the best be the enemy of the good, given that something imperfect 
but useful can be the seeds of something that ends up becoming 
truly excellent - depending on the intrinsic sunk costs from 
doing things not perfectly the first time which might depend on 
the particular problem but also might not be obvious beforehand].

Eg for all the time spent arguing about what's holding D back, 
some of the real progress in terms of making the language 
attractive to real end-users who are going to hire people and 
maybe contribute resources came from people just doing stuff.  
ndslice, PyD Magic (integration with python notebook), 
bachmeier's integration with R (which means access to all the R 
libraries, which is huge).

I notice Kenji rarely argues about things in the forum.  Would we 
be better off if he were to spend much more time here instead of 
fixing bugs ? :)  would we be better off if some people that like 
to argue were to pick just one of their points and write some 
code or a DIP?

Joakim:
"Pretty funny that he chose Stallman as his example of a guy who 
gets stuff done, whose Hurd microkernel never actually got done, 
:) though certainly ambitious, so Stallman would never have had a 
FOSS OS on which to run his GNU tools if it weren't for Linus."

No - I think he used Stallman as an example of someone who 
although he whined a lot actually did a hell of a lot of work 
even so and became the change in the world he wanted.  In my view 
productivity isn't about how many projects you don't manage to 
finish, but how many you do get done, and I am not sure I am in a 
position to criticize Stallman from that perspective, and even if 
his ideological approach isn't entirely my cup of tea, I do 
recognize he played a critical role there that was necessary.


Nick:
"That's a REALLY good article - quoting 'a patch in the hand is 
better than two in the bush'."
Yes, I think so.  Though it's delicate.  Problem is for some 
things making the wrong decision can be a disaster.  But, for 
example, with dirEntries right now - it's broken for serious use 
(last I checked and if it's fixed now, the point stands as it was 
broken for a long time).  Almost decent solutions have been 
proposed but fell short of perfection and then they were kind of 
dropped.  So the consequence is it's (possibly and if not then 
was for a long time) still broken.  That's not the first time 
this kind of thing has happened.

Was that the right trade-off between Type 1 and Type 2 errors?  
If you're not making some of each kind of mistake then it may be 
the case that the balance is wrong.  (Depending on the situation 
of course - depends on what the consequences are of making a 
mistake.  Conservatism isn't always the lower risk option, even 
though it feels that way).

"* Bare assertions that there is no need for the feature, when 
the fact that somebody wrote a patch should be prima facie 
evidence that the feature was needed"
Yes.  Though with language features it's delicate, and I respect 
the taste of Andrei/Walter and other key people.

"Really, what I’m asking is this: Which is more convincing? 
Concrete computer code authored by someone with first-hand 
knowledge of the defect? Or the bare assertion that something is 
wrong with it? I mean, either one might be correct. But the first 
is better supported."

Yes - quite.


Lobo - thanks for video link.  Will watch.


His montage of the shift in the front cover of hacker magazines 
was rather revealing of broader societal shifts.  (From Byte and 
Dr Dobbs in the 80s to their successors becoming more like 
lifestyle magazines today).

I've seen the same thing happen in my lifetime in certain parts 
of finance.  In the beginning you have a bunch of highly unusual 
people who ended up there almost by accident but really care 
about things intrinsically and are there as exiles from the rest 
of the world driven by social factors.  Then success (which comes 
_because_ they didn't care about social factors) leads to 
expansion and it brings in people who are less intrinsically 
motivated, drawn by money and prestige and the culture changes.  
Also because people who were on the outside looking in start to 
find being accepted into the establishment where it is warm and 
cosy quite appealing and lose sight of what it was that brought 
them success.  CoC!

(I mean that as regards the societal shift he talks about - 
clearly not really applicable to D, at least not today).