named arguments, string interpolation, please stop.

[H. S. Teoh]

On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 04:13:07PM +0000, bachmeier via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Thursday, 11 January 2024 at 14:47:16 UTC, zjh wrote:
> > On Thursday, 11 January 2024 at 14:34:57 UTC, jmh530 wrote:
> > > Its a tricky organizational problem. It's hard to have high
> > > quality/standards with a lot of contributors.
> > 
> > This is an organizational issue, how to arrange `manpower, time, and
> > tasks`?
> 
> Not so much. It's an ownership issue. You have to tell someone that
> they get to choose how to do the work. If it meets certain criteria,
> such as passing a set of tests specified in advance, it gets merged.

Exactly. The core problem is not technical, it is social.  We have no
problem with technical issues -- Walter is an expert at that, no doubt
about it, there's no problem on that front.  The social side has been a
problem since day 1, and it's clear by now that this is not going to
change.  So this problem will persist.

This project is open source in the sense of the license for the code,
but in terms of development and management it is absolutely run like a
closed-source, proprietary project.  I don't say whether this is good or
bad -- arguments can be made for both -- but as far as community
participation and retaining contributors is concerned, we're dreaming if
we think it will somehow magically work out.


> Very few people are willing to spend hours of their free time doing
> work, only to have it rejected because it's not the way the person in
> charge would have done it. I sure wouldn't. Especially considering
> that the criteria for rejection are arbitrary and revealed only after
> the fact.
>
> If the folks at the very top of the organization want to maintain
> ownership of everything, the only work that gets done is the work they
> do.

Yep.  D's history proves this beyond any doubt.


T

-- 
There's light at the end of the tunnel. It's the oncoming train.