I approved DIP1036e

[Mike Parker]

On Thursday, 18 January 2024 at 15:03:09 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

> button for those, it's not worth my time.)  We're talking about 
> people who have had a long history of contributing to D getting 
> frustrated with the way they were treated *in spite of having 
> actively contributed* to D.

I'm going to leave a few paragraphs here about this and then I'll 
say nothing more about it. And I want to be clear that these are 
my personal thoughts, not any sort of "official" thing on behalf 
of anyone in the DLF.

Whatever went on in the past, we have been actively working to 
make things better. When Grim posted his rant about deprecations, 
we implemented a new deprecation policy and actually started 
reverting deprecations. And though I know he has accused us of 
making no progress on the gripes and wishes, we actually have 
done so. That it hasn't been publicized is on me. Updating the 
list with the status of the points we've addressed is on my TODO 
list, but it's been a low priority for me.

After Adam made it known to me in an email last year how he 
really felt, I put him at the top of my list when I started 
reaching out to long-time contributors for one-on-one chats. We 
brought him into the meetings and he got Walter to accept the 
@standalone feature early on. When he brought in 1036e, Walter 
agreed to give it a fair evaluation. Adam was unhappy that Walter 
wanted a spec, so Atila agreed to put the editions proposal on 
hold to get it done (and please, let's not rehash the argument 
about reading code vs. writing specs).

All of this despite new features being on hold while we are 
focused on stabilization *and* editions being a very high 
priority. And despite the verbal abuse that Adam heaped on us in 
our meetings and repeatedly in the Discord server.

So please excuse me for being blunt when I say it's getting 
really tiresome hearing that we treated Adam badly here. Again, 
whatever happened in the past, that was not what was happening in 
this situation. He was at the table, actively being listened to, 
and actively providing feedback in our meetings.

I was extremely disappointed when he decided to follow the path 
he chose. I had high hopes that we were at the beginning of a new 
stage in our relationship with him. I like Adam, I admire the 
volume of code he has produced over the years, and I appreciate 
the untold lines of text he's written and hours he's spent 
helping new D programmers find their way.

I just wanted to leave this here as my personal perspective on 
what's happened the past few weeks. I have no interest in 
debating anyone about this and I'm not going to engage with any 
rebuttals.

We have work to do, and this topic has been beaten to death ten 
times over by now. Contributors have felt disrespected and 
ignored. We hear you. We all recognize and accept that we need to 
take steps to prevent this sort of thing from happening again in 
the future and provide the means to resolve it if it does. 
Reiterating and rehashing the accusations again and again is just 
going to keep these threads mired in multiple pages of points and 
counterpoints while adding no value to the conversation, doing 
nothing to help move us forward, and just filling the place with 
negative vibes.

Contributor relations need to improve. We get it. So I implore 
everyone to please lay this to rest and let's get on with the 
business of making things better for all of us.