OT: 'conduct unbecoming of a hacker'

[tsbockman via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 11 February 2016 at 06:20:33 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> On Thursday, 11 February 2016 at 05:31:54 UTC, tsbockman wrote:
>> As of today, the "Study" group for safe reference-counting 
>> doesn't appear to be going much of anywhere, because Walter 
>> and Andrei have rejected the DIP69 approach without having a 
>> real alternative in hand. (DIP77 seems better than nothing to 
>> me, but has not been well-received by those in the community 
>> who are most invested in, and most knowledgeable of, memory 
>> management issues.)
>
> I'll note that not knowing a better solution doesn't mean one 
> must simply accept the solution at hand, especially if that 
> temporary solution will be difficult to unwind later.  
> Sometimes you simply need more time to come up with something 
> better.  It all depends on the scale of the project and the 
> suitability of the solution presented; you cannot simply say 
> that "some" solution is better than nothing, as the original 
> quoted post does.
>
> But yeah, maybe the reasons for rejection can be communicated 
> better.

Although I realize it might sound like I am, I'm not really 
criticizing either side in this.

I don't really know whether either DIP69 or DIP77 actually 
represents a reasonable solution to the problem; as I said, I am 
unqualified to make that determination. I was simply giving my 
impression of where the discussion stands at the moment.

I am certainly not advocating that DIP77 be implemented over the 
objections of so many of the people in the community who *are* 
qualified.

>> In the spirit of the original post, perhaps what is needed is 
>> simply for someone to fork DMD and implement DIP69, so that 
>> people can actually try it instead of just imagining it. 
>> That's a lot of time and effort to invest though, knowing that 
>> your work will most likely be rejected for purely subjective 
>> reasons.
>
> This is why you should generally only work on something you 
> actually need, which is a great discipline.  Even if it's 
> rejected, you can code it up and use it yourself, though that's 
> not always possible with certain language changes and DIPs.

Definitely.

> For example, I asked about ARM and mobile support for D [...]

Your efforts are appreciated! I don't know if anyone else is 
using your work *yet*, but give it time and I'm confident that 
they will. ARM and Android are very important platforms.