Why is D unpopular

[forkit]

On Wednesday, 15 June 2022 at 04:28:25 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> On Tuesday, 14 June 2022 at 19:22:34 UTC, mee6 wrote:
>
>>
>> Having to convince those two is a waste of time.
>
> In the early days of D, new features could get into the 
> language by persuading Walter here in the forums. The community 
> was tiny, and such discussions were easy to follow. That's why 
> we have templates, the is operator (i.e., `c is null`), mixin 
> templates, and more. As time went by and the language became 
> more complex, Walter had to raise the bar on letting new 
> features in out of necessity (my private nickname for him back 
> then was "Dr. No").
>
> Moreover, at some point the community became too large for 
> focused feature discussions. They were scattered across 
> threads, rambling off topic, and difficult to follow (like this 
> whole private-to-the-module discussion going on now).
>
> The DIP was an initiative started 100% by *the community*. [The 
> Rationale of DIP 1](https://wiki.dlang.org/DIP1) shows why:
>
>> Keeping track of improvement proposals is very hard and not 
>> well documented organized. Having a template (and a process) 
>> for such proposals can improve the situation significantly.
>
> This forum discussion is where it came together:
>
> https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/new_DIP1_DIP_Template_92908.html
>
> Do a search on the following page for DIP and you'll see there 
> were 6 DIPs "submitted" within a month of that post (and two 
> more over the next three months):
>
> https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/index2009.html
>
> This was all community driven. There was no buy-in from Walter 
> at that point. There's even one post there from [someone asking 
> for Walter to declare DIPs 
> "official"](https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Wiki4D_Walter_and_DIPs_93463.html).
>
> There are plenty of DIP discussions in the archives, but it was 
> never a formal process. Of course, there was some frustration 
> because of that. So eventually, one volunteer stepped up and 
> formalized the process with Walter and Andrei's blessing:
>
> https://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/announce/Announcing_new_DIP_handling_process_44502.html
>
> ```
> There are two main goals for going this way:
>
> 1) Ensure communication between language authors and DIP 
> authors,
> establish better sense of actually contributing as opposed to 
> simply
> throwing ideas into the black box.
>
> 2) Improve overall quality of DIP documents to the point where 
> language
> authors can reasonably review them without spending too much 
> time on
> trivialities.
>
> Additional benefit I am hoping for is to have a centralized 
> place to
> subscribe to learn about all coming major changes coming to 
> language for
> those who can't keep up with NG regularly.
> Walter and Atila are the maintainers. If you want a new 
> feature, provide an argument that convinces them of its 
> benefits vs. its costs via the DIP process. That's the bar.
> ```
>
> And he added this note:
>
> ```
> I will act as a DIP manager for the time being. Please note 
> that role of
> DIP manager does not imply any decision power regarding DIP 
> approval, it
> remains an exclusive domain of language authors.
> ```
>
> I quote that for the last bit: "it remains the exclusive domain 
> of the language authors."
>
> The DIP process was created by the community as a way to refine 
> ideas for new features and ultimately present them to the 
> language authors for consideration. If you want to add a new 
> language feature, then this is the mechanism to do it, and 
> Walter and Atila are the two who you need to convince.

Honestly, it's now you who are insulting our intelligence.

Clearly, discussions do not result in a new feature. I mean how 
silly do you think we all are?

I did not want the difficult-to-follow-discussions and bulls^#$ 
responses, to start occurring only once a DIP is in progress. I 
want them now, cause they are sure to happen, that's a given.

The DIP process begins when all this nonsense has been sorted out.

Then people can decide on the merits of the DIP, instead of this 
silly emotional, irrational, nonsense that would have (if we did 
it your way) come out when DIP was produced anyway.

The fact is though, this has no chance of ever being in D, as 
Walter is too stuck in his way, and forces OO programmers to 
fully surrender the encapsulation of a class, to the module. It's 
just a ridiculous demand.

The approriate response, would be, let's compromise... here's a 
feature that does exactly what you need, and doesn't impact those 
who don't need it.

But no... too stubborn.

That's the cause of the controversy. Not the idea. The idea will 
continue to pop up... the same response will come from Walter, 
and around..and around... we go....

I'm getting off ;-)