The forked elephant in the room

[H. S. Teoh]

On Tue, Jan 16, 2024 at 11:20:59PM +0000, Paul Backus via Digitalmars-d wrote:
[...]
> With due respect, I think focusing on acceptance vs rejection of PRs
> is completely missing the point here.

Spot on!


> People like Adam Ruppe and Sebastian Wilzbach understand perfectly
> well that not every contribution is going to be accepted. They don't
> leave just because they can't get their way. They leave because they
> feel *personally* disrespected and insulted in their interactions with
> D's leadership.
[...]
> I understand that you and Walter do not *intend* to insult
> contributors or to treat them with disrespect, but you need to
> recognize that, in practice, that's what you've been doing, and good
> intentions do not absolve you of responsibility for it. And you need
> to stop doing it, because if you don't, it's going to kill D.

Yes, this is exactly what I've been trying to say (unsuccessfully, it
seems).  Thank you for spelling it out.  Hopefully in a clear enough way
that the message gets through.

Because if this continues, D is indeed going to die.  It may be a slow,
painful death, but it will die.  Die from long-time contributors finally
deciding to throw in the towel.  Die from not being able to gain (and
retain) new contributors to replace them.  And that would indeed be a
huge tragedy.  D is a great language, and has so much potential.  For it
to go to waste, because its leadership refuses to acknowledge and fix a
social problem that has become glaringly, blindingly obvious to any
unbiased observer over the past decade or more, would be a great tragedy
indeed.


> The simple fact is, D needs people like Adam Ruppe and Sebastian
> Wilzbach more than those people need D.

Yes.  There's an entire series of contributors who, had they stayed,
would have made a HUGE difference in D.  How many more do we need to
lose before we wake up?


> D's leadership cannot afford to insult and disrespect its contributors
> until they run out of patience and leave for greener pastures. And D's
> leadership *especially* cannot afford to cement D in the minds of
> *potential* contributors as a language whose leadership is
> disrespectful, unprofessional, and frustrating to work with.

Exactly.  We're already having manpower problems.  Had been having them
for a very long time now.  If this continues, in all likelihood it will
get worse.  And may well reach the point where it will actually kill D.


> OpenD was on the front page of both Hacker News and Reddit's
> /r/programming this week. What effect do you think that's had on D's
> reputation? On its ability to attract new contributors?
> 
> This fork should have been a wakeup call, but already, looking at this
> thread, I can see that the wrong lessons are being learned. This is
> not about whether or not PRs get merged. It's about giving
> contributors the respect and acknowledgement they deserve--not just
> with your words, but with your actions, your effort, and your time.

+100.  This fork has never been about the string interpolation PR. Nor
about some pet feature that got rejected.  All of that is only
incidental. The REAL problem is the lack of respect and acknowledgement,
not necessarily in word but certainly in action, that has accumulated
over years, even decades, until finally the camel's back snapped.

To merely remove that one last straw and think that the camel is now OK,
completely misses the point.  The remainder of the burden is still on
the camel's back.  It won't take much before another straw is piled on
and the camel's back will break again.  Soon there will be no more
camels left, and D will be stranded, maybe forever, in the middle of the
desert of obscurity with nowhere else to go.


> D is a great language, and a great community. All of us here, I think,
> want to see it succeed. Please don't let us down.
[...]

As others have already said, this is a critical juncture for D.  If the
current leadership continues its present course, openD may very well
become D's replacement.  Or it may not, and both will die.  That is also
a very real possibility.

The best hope for D is really if the leadership could be reconciled with
the openD folk, and both could work together to improve D.  Adam has
told me personally that this would be the best outcome.  However, he is
not holding his breath.  Please prove him wrong.  Because the other
alternatives all suck.


T

-- 
People tell me that I'm paranoid, but they're just out to get me.