Why is D unpopular?

[Dukc]

On Wednesday, 3 November 2021 at 05:20:11 UTC, Ola Fosheim 
Grøstad wrote:
> On Tuesday, 2 November 2021 at 23:47:42 UTC, Dukc wrote:
>
>> Not saying your theory is wrong, but I'm not going to put much 
>> weight on it and neither should anyone else, unless you can 
>> show some research you're basing your opinions on. And that 
>> applies to all forum theories about subjects like this.
>
> Quantitative science is not very good at answering questions 
> related to design and culture where the context is changing. So 
> you have to make do with qualitative analysis. If you don’t 
> like that, why engage in discussions?

Qualitative research is okay. But it has to be based on much more 
than what people say on the forum / Reddit / Hacker news. 
Following and analyzing the development on GitHub and 
alternatives would be a start, but even that misses closed-source 
projects and the underlying reasons on why people come and go. So 
ideally we want something else too, say interviews.

The research should consider a spectrum of possibilities. Each 
theory the research considers unlikely in the conclusion, it must 
provide evidence against. It is not enough to provide evidence 
for the possibility considered likely.

Perhaps you have done something like that already. But if you can 
not or will not show it, we others have no way of telling your 
theory from yet another forum ramble.

Note that I'm not taking this stance for all forum discussions. 
When discussing DIPs for example, you can provide examples 
everyone can verify (or debunk). But if you're saying that a 
stronger vision will/would have attracted more people, only 
research can really tell.