OT: 'conduct unbecoming of a hacker'

[tsbockman via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 11 February 2016 at 04:59:16 UTC, Laeeth Isharc 
wrote:
> On Thursday, 11 February 2016 at 04:54:15 UTC, tsbockman wrote:
>> True. Just pointing out that for certain recurring issues, the 
>> reason that people have fallen back to grumbling is because 
>> some DIPs *did* get written, but were rejected for vague, 
>> non-constructive reasons, with no (workable) alternative being 
>> offered.
>
> Which ones, out if interest ?  And in your opinion were they 
> thought through ?

Specifically, DIP69 and its predecessors, which propose a 
Rust-inspired lifetime and escape analysis system as a solution 
to many of D's memory model woes.

It seemed (and still seems) like a good solution to me, but I 
recognize that I am insufficiently experienced and knowledgeable 
in the relevant areas to deserve a vote in the matter.

So, I'm not necessarily saying that it should have been accepted 
- but I can definitely understand how frustrating it is for those 
who worked on it over the course of several months to have it 
rejected (as far as I can tell) simply because it is "too 
complicated". This is non-constructive in the sense that it is a 
subjective judgment which does not point the way to a better 
solution.

As of today, the "Study" group for safe reference-counting 
doesn't appear to be going much of anywhere, because Walter and 
Andrei have rejected the DIP69 approach without having a real 
alternative in hand. (DIP77 seems better than nothing to me, but 
has not been well-received by those in the community who are most 
invested in, and most knowledgeable of, memory management issues.)

In the spirit of the original post, perhaps what is needed is 
simply for someone to fork DMD and implement DIP69, so that 
people can actually try it instead of just imagining it. That's a 
lot of time and effort to invest though, knowing that your work 
will most likely be rejected for purely subjective reasons.