OT: 'conduct unbecoming of a hacker'

Ola Fosheim Grøstad via Digitalmars-d digitalmars-d at puremagic.com
Thu Feb 11 04:47:20 PST 2016


On Thursday, 11 February 2016 at 11:46:44 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> That's why I differentiated between getting a team on the same 
> page and high-quality coherent designs.  The former may get 
> more done, but usually not at high quality.  Read up more at 
> the Linus links I gave to get the alternate perspective, of how 
> to do it _without_ consensus.

Linux is not a good example. Linux is too high profile and can 
afford massive churn. That is highly inefficient use of 
programmer resources.


> On the other hand, that means only those who really know or are 
> willing to spend the time learning the codebase can compete 
> with you, ie new competition can't get going as fast.  There 
> are both pros and cons to being early.

Mostly cons. There are very few potential customers. And most 
likely no local customers, which are the most attractive ones.


> How is Loci in any way a fork of D?  It may be similar in its 
> features and goals, but it doesn't appear to fork any dmd or D 
> code.

I didn't say fork. I was talking about people who have given up 
on the D development process and created their own language in 
the same catagory as C++ and D.


> If you believe those languages' priorities are "not entirely 
> well founded," that's an opportunity for you to get it right. :)

Sure, I'm thinking about it. But I currently think 
WebAssembly/JavaScript + Linux server are the most important 
targets, so maybe going from scratch is less work, actually.

But sure, building a new language over Rust, D or Go is an option.


> As the original post noted, both need and want are irrelevant, 
> if you're unwilling to code.

Nobody are unwilling to code. Most people are unwilling to manage 
a project or invest in a project that isn't properly managed.  
What you need is a well managed project with a clear vision, 
clear goals and good leadership.

And please don't point at Linus, he is not a particularly 
effective leader, but probably does well as a manager. But Posix 
was already given... The broad strokes for a monolithic kernel is 
kinda given. He just happend to whip up something at the right 
time, that many people had been looking for (free unix).

> I don't use or follow C++, but stuff like CTFE has been 
> mentioned in this forum before.

Well, constexpr functions can replace convoluted template 
programming. Not sure if that is related to D.

> A lot of solo devs using D to go in the same general direction 
> will work too, probably a lot better than consensus.

Well, not sure what we are talking about here. Clearly, you need 
consensus among said devs if you are going to change the language 
so that it can either support better manual memory managment or 
faster garbage collection?

> According to Linus, linux never had such a consensus, why did 
> it succeed?

Because there was no free Unix on x86 and the CPUs at that point 
in time had MMUs. Many people who used Unix at work or on campus 
wanted Unix at home too. Many students used Minix in their OS 
course, and disliked the non-free license. So you basically had a 
fairly large group of people willing to throw in weeks and 
months, if not years in the early stages of the project.

>> Yes. But it could be simple. Like.
>>
>> 1. full feature freeze
>> 2. heavy refactoring
>> 3. full documentation of module x, y and z.
>>
>> + some details on goals and planning
>
> Such restarts rarely work out in the best of circumstances, ie 
> a company with lots of money, even more so in a volunteer 
> community.  Not saying it can't or shouldn't be done, just that 
> incremental improvement is more likely.

Refactoring and documentation isn't a restart.

It is common hygiene!


> But python has not emerged from that scripting language niche 
> either, and I think you greatly overestimate how well C++11 is 
> doing.

Python was inspired by a language used for teaching programming, 
but was geared to more advanced programmers. Not sure what you 
mean by Python not having emerged?

> Those who want D to specialize more should heed Linus's words.

Can you paraphase those words in a condensed manner that is 
relevant to programming languages? I don't get the argument.



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