Import concerns revisited

[Sean Kelly]

Walter Bright wrote:
> kris wrote:
>> The same thing happened with Associative Arrays: you didn't bother to 
>> solicit opinion on either of the two occasions when it was changed; 
>> and then subsequently complained when people still found issue with 
>> you alternate changes. It's still not right to this day. I see the 
>> same pattern here. And for what?
> 
> I did implement it according to the suggestions - and then the people 
> who made those suggestions had issue with it. So I take issue(!) with 
> your statement that I did it in a vacuum. I preferred the original 
> design, and the change caused me a lot of work updating things like 
> dmdscript which extensively used AA's.

Not to get off topic, but that was a pretty hot issue and a lot of ideas 
were thrown around (as with this now).  I preferred the old syntax as 
well but wasn't willing to press the issue and things heated up.  And by 
the end of the discussion I don't think there was any clear consensus on 
what the changes should be.  I suspect this is why everyone was a bit 
surprised at the changes--any changes would have been at least a bit 
surprising.  I think what was lacking there was public evidence of any 
sort of decision.  At some point things just sort of died down and the 
next release contained a new implementation built from the conclusions 
you had drawn (accurate or no).  It would have helped immensely if, 
before making any changes, there had been a post outlining your 
conclusions and the changes you intended to make.  This would inevitably 
have sparked more discussion, but if it's a change you don't find 
particularly appealing anyway, I think it's worth making sure the 
dissenters have no right to complain after the fact :-)

>> Anyone would think we were trying to sabotage the language,
> 
> Nobody thinks that. We are all trying to get the best design for D 
> possible. That doesn't mean we are all going to agree on what the best 
> design is. There's no cause to label a difference of opinion as 
> sabotage, or any of the other epithets bandied about in this 
> disagreement (or some of the previous ones).

I think part of the problem is that large public forums doesn't lend 
themselves well to directed discussion, and the general trend in d.D, 
simply because of the large number of participants, is that any such 
discussion be comes frustratingly garbled.  You don't reply to every 
person who feels they said something deserving a response, and people 
begin to feel they're being deliberately ignored.  As Kris started this 
discussion in the first place, I suspect it's particularly frustrating 
to him that it suffer the fate of all such discussions here, and that 
his posts are some of those not offered considered responses.  Not to 
mention that this is an issue he appears to have spent a tremendous 
amount of time thinking about, and obviously feels quite strongly about 
as well.

Assuming you're considering any change as a result of this conversation, 
perhaps the details could be settled explicitly, either here or in a 
separate thread?  I think everyone has said their piece at this point, 
and it would probably help everyone cool down a bit if things wrapped up 
with a suggested plan, even if the plan is to not change a thing for 
reasons X Y and Z.


Sean