Generality creep

[Nicholas Wilson]

On Friday, 29 March 2019 at 13:57:57 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:
> This is a lot more difficult to set up than it seems.
>
> One reason is that surprisingly few of the contributors come 
> here to learn, to acquire knowledge. Most come to dispense. I 
> spent long times reviewing pull requests in our community, 
> calibrated to the reviews standards at Facebook (however 
> controversial, they have an impressive software engineering 
> force).

Therein lies your problem, you are attempting to fit a square peg 
in a round hole.
You are not dealing with well paid highly qualified engineers 
whose job it is to do what needs to be done.
For the most part you are dealing with an intermittent army of 
volunteers of a range of abilities for whom this is a hobby.

> There, the code review process is locked in a virtuous circle: 
> you get good reviews that help you improve, and you'd be 
> motivated to give good reviews to improve others'.
>
> Here, my reviews were more often than not met with hostility.

I can't speak for your phobos reviews, but most of the 
interactions I've had with you on dmd were not at all useful.

> As a pattern, [an author] would be more willing to write the 
> code once and then defend it in its current state, rather than 
> improve it through review. In a few extreme cases, people flat 
> out told me they'll abandon the PR if I don't take it as it is.

Been there
https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/8557#pullrequestreview-149952733
done that
https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/8557#issuecomment-416798558

> Larger disagreements on matters of architecture and design were 
> often taken as personal offenses.

With responses like that I can see why.

> I'd wake up in the morning for days, then weeks and months, 
> with one thought: "I have so many things to do today, and I 
> like none of them." The irony! Here I was, independent, working 
> for myself on whatever I dreamed of. Yet this was worse than 
> the worst jobs I've ever had. How did I get into this 
> situation? I think it has to do with a simple reality - I was 
> trying to mentor people who didn't want to be mentored.

Probably, chances are most of them wanted to get shit done...

> So I think it would be difficult to establish a master/mentee 
> dynamics.

... but there are definitely those out there looking for 
experience, looking to become better programmers (GSoC students 
are a good source).