Feedback on Átila's Vision for D
Ola Fosheim Grøstad
ola.fosheim.grostad at gmail.com
Thu Oct 17 15:19:32 UTC 2019
On Thursday, 17 October 2019 at 14:19:21 UTC, welkam wrote:
> Its important how new people coming to this community are being
> welcomed/treated and their experiences.
That is exactly right. People look to forums when then wonder
where things are going. So when people complain about the issues
they are facing they should be met with understanding and the
problems should be acknowledged. In the past that was not really
the norm, in fact it was quite the opposite, what they complained
about was outright dismissed and their opinions invalidated and
ridiculed.
I haven't seen Chris doing any of that in this thread. Doesn't he
acknowledge issues people feel strongly about?
If people look at a forum and see issues and opinions they share
dismissed, then they will most likely loose hope of improvement
and leave. If they see that others share their concerns then they
gain hope that something can be done. If something is in the
pipeline, even better!
For instance I lurked for a long time and the only reason I
started writing in this forums because I felt that Manu was being
dismissed while his arguments for where D should head were spot
on. Only recently has D moved in this direction and I have to
applaud his persistent stance on pushing D in that direction. I
doubt that would have happend if he was alone... so for something
to move you need many different voices pushing for that change.
Then eventually, over time the arguments are picked up by those
that resist change.
That said, I often look at github to see what a new tool/language
turns out to be in practice. And quite frankly if you look at
well-written fully typed generic D code on github, that code
is... hard on the eyes. That really matters. People should
complain about it, because it actually matters. It isn't just
syntax, this is how the language presents itself to the world.
> 2. Its needs to be personal insult.
> My post contained neither of them.
"against the person". Anyway, Chris can handle it... but going
personal does not build a good culture and does not encourage
lurkers to participate.
> Yes thats why I raised that issue. Some people have higher
> tolerance to negative emotion and some dont.
Well, but there is company in misery, so actually I'd say the
opposite. People might stay and deicide to advocate for change if
they perceive that other have had the same problems as they have.
If people want something to move then they have to build some
kind of alliance or exert some force or educate others. That
sometimes invoke emotions, but it does not have to be personal.
With no emotions you will probably not get more than tiny
modifications of status quo.
> I would argue that there were no marketing.
Oh, D1 was marketed quite heavily as an improvement on C++, hit
Slashdot as a news story when Slashdot was big.
> I have noticed this thing too. There are ideas that are
> widespread and they hurt D's adoption. There is idea that there
> needs to be different tool for the job or false dichotomy of
> low level and high level languages. Do I need to mention GC?
But the dichotomy isn't false... and heavily relying on the GC
has probably held D back from taking the position Rust is getting
now...
Both Rust and the C++ committee are addressing user concerns at a
fast pace now. So it isn't realistic to think that D can keep up
with those at this point in time.
So at this point D can only try to figure out where it fits in,
rather than taking over the space of other languages. The time
window for "taking over" ended a few years ago. I think.
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