On Thursday, 21 May 2020 at 17:03:49 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
> The problem as I see it is someone making a decision on his own DIP. That just doesn't make any sense to me, and I've stated that numerous times. Walter has a tendency to throw gas on the fire by ignoring much of the feedback and not spending time to understand the points others are making when he does respond. I really think you should have to convince *someone else* that your proposal is reasonable.

In principle, at least, this is why we have two "language maintainers," Walter and Atila (previously, Walter and Andrei).

I think the real problem here is the lack of communication. As it stands, we have no way to tell whether feedback was considered or ignored, or what the ultimate rationale behind this decision was--we can only speculate. Even if we suppose for the sake of argument that the decision is sound on a technical level, this is poor leadership, and bodes ill for the future of the D language and its community.

On Thursday, 21 May 2020 at 17:49:27 UTC, Paul Backus wrote:
> On Thursday, 21 May 2020 at 17:03:49 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
>> The problem as I see it is someone making a decision on his own DIP. That just doesn't make any sense to me, and I've stated that numerous times. Walter has a tendency to throw gas on the fire by ignoring much of the feedback and not spending time to understand the points others are making when he does respond. I really think you should have to convince *someone else* that your proposal is reasonable.
>
> In principle, at least, this is why we have two "language maintainers," Walter and Atila (previously, Walter and Andrei).

There's a big difference between being part of a three-person committee discussing a proposal by Walter and working together with Walter to make a decision on his own proposal. It's certainly doesn't pass the smell test.

On Thu, May 21, 2020 at 05:49:27PM +0000, Paul Backus via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote: [...]
> I think the real problem here is the lack of communication. As it stands, we have no way to tell whether feedback was considered or ignored, or what the ultimate rationale behind this decision was--we can only speculate.

I've said pretty much the same thing before, but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. :-/  What's frustrating to the community isn't primarily the technical aspects (though of course, that's also a factor), but the human aspect of communication. Or rather, the lack thereof.

I'd even grant that Walter, being BFDL, can make whatever arbitrary decisions he wants, but at the very least acknowledge the existence of the rest of us.  "Accepted without comment" amounts to denial that we even exist, considering how much feedback was given on this DIP.  Even a "accepted in spite of community feedback" is better than "without comment".

(Maybe our virtual non-existence might ultimately become actual non-existence as this community shrinks to zero. :-P)


> Even if we suppose for the sake of argument that the decision is sound on a technical level, this is poor leadership, and bodes ill for the future of the D language and its community.

D excels at the technical aspects, but time and time again has shown that it lacks proper management / leadership.  Contrary to my own inclinations I'm compelled to suggest hiring a *non-technical* person to take up the management/leadership roles (emphatically non-technical, because let's face it, we techies just don't have the people skillz it takes to do this properly), because the current situation clearly isn't working, and is quite detrimental to D and its future.


T

-- 
Computers shouldn't beep through the keyhole.

On 5/21/2020 9:14 AM, Seb wrote:
> On Thursday, 21 May 2020 at 13:51:34 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
>> DIP 1028, "Make @safe the Default", has been accepted without comment.
>>
>> https://github.com/dlang/DIPs/blob/master/DIPs/accepted/DIP1028.md
> 
> "without comment" - even though there were a lot of unaddressed problems :/

I did address, several times over, the problems in the discussion thread.


> Great! So what's the entire point of this process?
> To give people the illusion of progress and participation?

Consider that several of my own DIPs were rejected due to community response.


> Why we can't we have a technical board where the community can vote in experts and potentially companies could even buy a seat for $$$ which would mean a lot more for them than the current very vague sponsorship options.
> I'm aware that Walter doesn't like the idea of giving up ownership, but it makes all the other people question why they should still bother with this process and not simply fork and move to an open, transparent development...

I expected flak from this decision. I'm prepared to take the flak because this is the right decision. I did not make it lightly.

Please keep in mind that I've made other unpopular decisions that have proven their worth over time. I hope you'll reserve judgement until we all see how this change plays out.

If it does turn out badly, it's on me and I'll take my lumps.

On 5/21/2020 10:03 AM, bachmeier wrote:
> Walter makes decisions based on his mood on a particular day
That's uncalled for.

On 5/21/2020 11:36 AM, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> I'd even grant that Walter, being BFDL, can make whatever arbitrary
> decisions he wants, but at the very least acknowledge the existence of
> the rest of us.  "Accepted without comment" amounts to denial that we
> even exist, considering how much feedback was given on this DIP.  Even a
> "accepted in spite of community feedback" is better than "without
> comment".

I've discussed it at length in the n.g. with y'all.

On 5/21/2020 10:26 AM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> Agree. I will not be participating in the DIP process from now on. It is a complete waste of time. Walter should just make the changes he wants and not bother with the facade of discussion.

Many replies to you, Steven:

https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Discussion_Thread_DIP_1028--Make_safe_the_Default--Final_Review_336354.html

I did not ignore you. I just didn't agree.

On 5/21/20 4:59 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 5/21/2020 10:26 AM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> Agree. I will not be participating in the DIP process from now on. It is a complete waste of time. Walter should just make the changes he wants and not bother with the facade of discussion.
> 
> Many replies to you, Steven:
> 
> https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Discussion_Thread_DIP_1028--Make_safe_the_Default--Final_Review_336354.html 

Many unsatisfactory replies. Eventually my attempts to explain my position were ignored. It's the equivalent of walking off stage because you lost the debate, only to claim you won because you stopped talking.

My points were straightforward, easy to understand, vastly agreed upon (and echoed) by all of the experienced people here (except you), and your rebuttals were extremely dubious, depending on hypothetical non-sequiturs with an imagined developer who doesn't understand how prototypes might work. Short story is, you made poor arguments and considered the matter closed "without comment". This is extremely unsatisfactory.

> I did not ignore you. I just didn't agree.

You didn't agree, and that is your choice. But you also didn't address any of the points I made, instead choosing to focus on confusion from an imaginary person who has no clue why his safe code cannot call unsafe functions even though the attributes are not explicit (which means he should probably spend the 10 seconds to learn and become a better programmer).

The unfortunate end result of this change is that safety will be gutted with all C functions being trusted by default, ironically by the person who is claiming that memory safety is of utmost importance, and how C got it wrong. All without delivering a single convincing argument as to why he is right.

I even put forth a completely ignored compromise solution that would have solved the problem and allowed extern(C) functions to be considered @safe by default: https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Discussion_Thread_DIP_1028--Make_safe_the_Default--Final_Review_336354.html#N336968

This is why I consider the process a waste of time, and why I'm done participating.

-Steve

On Thursday, 21 May 2020 at 20:59:08 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> Many replies to you, Steven:
>
> https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Discussion_Thread_DIP_1028--Make_safe_the_Default--Final_Review_336354.html
>
> I did not ignore you. I just didn't agree.

One concern here is that these responses are scattered across different parts of a long discussion thread.  So it probably would be a good idea for the acceptance to be accompanied by an explanation of what the major objections were to the DIP, and why they were discounted.

It's not so different from the way that, at the end of a talk or presentation, it's a good idea to recap the key points that have already been covered.

On Thursday, 21 May 2020 at 20:48:18 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 5/21/2020 10:03 AM, bachmeier wrote:
>> Walter makes decisions based on his mood on a particular day
> That's uncalled for.

Regional variation in English? Translation: You make your decisions based on how you feel about the situation at a point in time. "Mood" is used because there's some subjectivity and "gut feel" involved in the decision. It's not intended to be negative, it's simply a description of how any human makes any decision. That's why I said the same about how a committee would make decisions.