On Monday, 8 September 2014 at 23:31:49 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
> And there are no NG rules that say I shouldn't write some off-topic bullshit in your threads. Also clearly the only reason why we don't casually walk around shooting people is because laws prohibit doing so, otherwise it is perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Listen to me, and listen carefully. If you want to challenge me verbally, please don't put your head on the chopping block. A verbal fight where you put yourself up for verbal annihilation is just no fun!

I truly believe you when you claim that you are a people's person and that the community is more important to you than the product/license. Unfortunately you completely undermine your "people over license" argument by using abusive techniques that are usually tied to brainwashed people-unfriendly cultists. Techniques such as: trying to silence members by pointing out their lack of worth, threatening by shunning and resorting to ridicule.

I don't hold the view that the D community is more valuable than the product/license. The community is valuable, but the end product is more important and the community has to fully back the license and not undermine it.

I am not here to increase my self worth, though I don't mind an educated argument or a role playing stunt, I am here to increase the probability of having a programming language that is better than the alternatives for server programming within a few years. With the current situation it will take another decade.

I also happen to think that ketmar is funny and have the right go-happy nonchalant attitude (which I as a fan of Wodehouse appreciate). More of his sort will increase the probability of ending up with a great product. I am very much aligned with his outlook, although I probably will never agree with him on the syntax. That's ok, we don't have to agree on anything as long as we are having fun, are free to create and can freely share ideas.

The bottom line is this: if the community has to change in order to get a decent programming language, then that is the right thing to do.

You appear to think that management == control. You come through as a control freak, but I could be wrong.

Management is about nurturing talent, smoothing out differences and facilitating productivity. It is not primarily about control.

Cults usually have problem gaining more than 12-30 members. They constrain the freedom of their members too much. Bad idea.

For the D community to grow it has to play up to and appreciate diversity and conflicting goals among the members. That means you have to appreciate that people are participating for reasons you don't share and have other goals than yourself.

I'll be happy to fork D if it makes it possible for me to work on it full time. A license is a contract. You either stand by it or renegotiate it. I take the liberties of the liberal Boost license literally and will enjoy them in any fashion I fancy.

What you are saying is basically that you disagree with the license, so maybe Walter should have spent more time making sure that he had backing for it in the community, but that is an issue you have to take up with him. Not me or ketmar.

On Tuesday, 9 September 2014 at 13:15:56 UTC, AsmMan wrote:
>> in : templatename‹params›
>> out: templatename!(params)
>
> Why dou want to turn it into C++'s style? it will slow down the compiler time because we need to look at symbol table the type

Good question. I look at my D1 code and it is visually pleasing to look at. I look at D2 code and it looks like line noise in comparison.

This is just an experiment where I implement stuff that is easy to fix in the existing parser without changing too much. The ideal solution is to write a completely new parser with a new and more coherent syntax, but this is sufficient to get some ideas.

I won't know if I think it is a good or bad idea until I have played with it for several months or so. I want D2 features, but I also want a clear visual image in my editor.

> I didn't find this one so bad but these symbols are hard to type on usual keyboard...

Yeah, but sometimes compact syntax is more important. It is worth experimenting with it, so I've started with symbols that are available on my own keyboard although I will do square(), logic symbols etc if it turns out to be a nice feature.

Again, I can't tell until I've tried it for a while.

On 09/11/2014 01:46 PM, "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?= <ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang@gmail.com>" wrote:
>> The D community is as
>> diverse as the language and even if three people yell in the
>> same tone, it doesn't mean everyone else believes the same.
>
> I know that, but newbies don't know that. [...]Exchanging mods with other newbies (which I am in a way)

?

Protip: Stop categorising people in a blurry way and making unsound general statements about those categories if you want your points to be understood.

>
> A bunch of unwritten rules tend to lead to unpleasant situations. It is
> important for a development community to align their attitudes to the
> freedoms implied by the license.

AFAICS, the Boost license is just about opting out of possibly annoying defaults of copyright law. I see no reason to adopt an ideology over this.

> A Boost license comes with a set of
> freedoms that I would expect the community to back fully.

I.e. you expect 'the community' to hold restricted opinions?

Also: Where does the Boost licence say anything about discussing arbitrary derivative works on the official forums?

> There is no good reason for having forum members adhere to a separate set of rules
> where they have their freedom restricted.

How has your 'freedom' been 'restricted', if at all?

(BTW: freedom becomes a non-trivial concept as soon as more than one entity should be free.)

On Thursday, 11 September 2014 at 14:14:38 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
> Protip: Stop categorising people in a blurry way and making unsound general statements about those categories if you want your points to be understood.

Which unsound general statement? If you are talking about my response to Dicebot it was "mirroring" his own arguments to make him realize where he was going. Basically outlining the consequences of his own rhetorics.

> AFAICS, the Boost license is just about opting out of possibly annoying defaults of copyright law. I see no reason to adopt an ideology over this.

I don't understand this statement. I would not touch a code base that is not under PD, Boost, BSD or MIT for very pragmatic reasons. Those pragmatic reasons is that I don't want my freedom to be tied down.

If the community is trying to undermine the license through what might be described as "verbal abuse", then the license is put in doubt. I can then not assume that the next version will be released under the same license. That makes the source code less attractive. This is what Dicebot achieves. The question is, is this what the original authored wanted? And why should Dicebot have the privilege to undermine the license? This is a trust issue.

> How has your 'freedom' been 'restricted', if at all?

Look up the word "shunning".

> (BTW: freedom becomes a non-trivial concept as soon as more than one entity should be free.)

I don't know what you are talking about. The license grants your freedoms. If a third party try to restrict that freedom using threats or verbal abuse then they are doing something wrong. This ought to be obvious.

I am still perplexed by the whole "valued member" rhetorical element Dicebot uses. He seems to place an unusual emphasis on the need to evaluate other people. I'd frankly suggest he deal with those issues somewhere else.

On Thursday, 11 September 2014 at 12:26:39 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
> I am not here to increase my self worth, though I don't mind an educated argument or a role playing stunt, I am here to increase the probability of having a programming language that is better than the alternatives for server programming within a few years. With the current situation it will take another decade.

Let me begin by noting that I'm glad you're tinkering with D, :) as I noted earlier that experimentation is good.

> You appear to think that management == control. You come through as a control freak, but I could be wrong.
>
> Management is about nurturing talent, smoothing out differences and facilitating productivity. It is not primarily about control.
>
> Cults usually have problem gaining more than 12-30 members. They constrain the freedom of their members too much. Bad idea.

These "totalitarian" or "cult" arguments don't go anywhere because it is easy to shrug them off, since the reality is far from that extreme.  The core D group can sometimes be insular, but I don't think that's really the problem here.

> I'll be happy to fork D if it makes it possible for me to work on it full time. A license is a contract. You either stand by it or renegotiate it. I take the liberties of the liberal Boost license literally and will enjoy them in any fashion I fancy.
>
> What you are saying is basically that you disagree with the license, so maybe Walter should have spent more time making sure that he had backing for it in the community, but that is an issue you have to take up with him. Not me or ketmar.

This argument has nothing to do with the Boost license, as practically every open source license allows the same forking.  Looking back at how this blew up, it was actually Daniel who asked you not to "fork D's syntax" and then Dicebot merely reinforced that, before you both went overboard.

The real issue is that historically any programming language didn't want a bunch of incompatible syntax dialects floating around, as that makes it difficult for many devs to understand what the language proper actually consists of.  That concern about "fragmentation" is all Daniel and Dicebot were speaking to.

However, I've noted that is not a reason to frown on syntax experimentation like you and ketmar want to do, as your syntax tweaking is far from a full-blown or popular dialect yet.  I've also noted that there may be a modern solution to such a problem, automated syntax translation for different dialects.

Dicebot can't stop you from experimenting with new syntax: in fact, he started off by saying what _he_ would do instead, not what _you_ should do, in his second post.  Keep tinkering and sharing patches and let us know what you find.

On 09/11/2014 06:45 PM, "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?= <ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang@gmail.com>" wrote:
> On Thursday, 11 September 2014 at 14:14:38 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
>> ...
>
> Which unsound general statement? ...

I was quoting relevant passages.

>...
>
> If the community

'the community'?

> is trying to undermine the license

I don't even see that happening. What I saw was Daniel voicing a polite request based on his perception of the situation and drama immediately ensuing without any further adult discussion.

> through what might be described as "verbal abuse",

I discourage such behaviour, but the statements made by you and ketmar in response to Daniel meet similarly low standards. I suggest not to ascribe this incident too much importance.

> then the license is put in doubt. I can
> then not assume that the next version will be released under the same
> license. That makes the source code less attractive. This is what
> Dicebot achieves.  The question is, is this what the original authored
> wanted? And why should Dicebot have the privilege to undermine the
> license? This is a trust issue.
> ...

If this happened, then you would be the one who authorizes Dicebot to have such an effect: by your distrust.

>> How has your 'freedom' been 'restricted', if at all?
>
> Look up the word "shunning".
> ...

I encourage you to look it up yourself. Nothing of that sort has taken place.

> ...
>
> I don't know what you are talking about. The license grants your
> freedoms.

It grants you certain _rights_. It guarantees you that you won't be sued for certain actions that would usually be up to prosecution without licensing.

On Monday, 8 September 2014 at 15:25:11 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
> On 09/08/2014 10:51 AM, "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?= <ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang@gmail.com>" wrote:
>>
>> What kind of syntactical sugar do you feel is missing in D?
>
> int square(int x)=>x*x;

Unfortunately we still can't just write:

alias square = x => x * x;

but you can do this:

alias id(alias A) = A;
alias square = id!(x => x * x);

On Thursday, 11 September 2014 at 20:02:22 UTC, Peter Alexander wrote:
> On Monday, 8 September 2014 at 15:25:11 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
>> On 09/08/2014 10:51 AM, "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?= <ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang@gmail.com>" wrote:
>>>
>>> What kind of syntactical sugar do you feel is missing in D?
>>
>> int square(int x)=>x*x;
>
> Unfortunately we still can't just write:
>
> alias square = x => x * x;
>
> but you can do this:
>
> alias id(alias A) = A;
> alias square = id!(x => x * x);

https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dmd/pull/3638

On Thursday, 11 September 2014 at 19:23:27 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
> I was quoting relevant passages.

Nothing unsound there. I am a newbie to dmd modding.

> I discourage such behaviour, but the statements made by you and ketmar in response to Daniel meet similarly low standards. I suggest not to ascribe this incident too much importance.

I made no response to Daniel. (but his response was not polite)

> If this happened, then you would be the one who authorizes Dicebot to have such an effect: by your distrust.

No, the DMD developers have to back the license.

If the dev team don't undestand their own license then there are three interpretations:

1. The project is lacking proper management.
2. They failed to add a clause to the contract.
3. Hypocracy.

Nothing prevents you from locking the license to the language spec if you want to restrict usage.

Licenses such as boost, mit and bsd embeds expected policies that implies that forking, competition and exploitation is ok by the author. Pretending this is not the case will just create confusion and noise.

On Thursday, 11 September 2014 at 17:10:13 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> Let me begin by noting that I'm glad you're tinkering with D, :) as I noted earlier that experimentation is good.

Yeah, but there are many different models to design. Informally:

1. organic/evolutionary design: let development go in many directions and let the most fit solutions survive. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating". Comes with overhead.

2. expert design: let people with theoretical knowledge do the overarching design and let regular people do the implementation. "sistine chapel". Risks of missing the target.

3. democratic/iterative/evolutionary design: involve end users in the process and let them design features. The big advantage is end user acceptance, the downside is that they might vote for the wrong features.

I prefer a mix of 1/2, but you can make good arguments for all of these and several other models. Basically, there are trade-offs. Some good, some bad.

> These "totalitarian" or "cult" arguments don't go anywhere because it is easy to shrug them off, since the reality is far from that extreme.  The core D group can sometimes be insular, but I don't think that's really the problem here.

No, but I have previously argued against having a single branch and rather have one stable branch maintained by the "D team", and then have an experimental branch which is more lax and open to experimental contributions and "fun".

People working on the main branch need to align their goals to be productive, but you can only do that with a limited amount of people. Team-management is a challenging task, so you have to limit the size of the team if you want to do it well.

What is really wrong is brushing latent conflicts and irreconcilable expectations under the carpet. That can grow over time into fracturing. It is better to have them in the open at an early stage.

>> What you are saying is basically that you disagree with the license, so maybe Walter should have spent more time making sure that he had backing for it in the community, but that is an issue you have to take up with him. Not me or ketmar.
>
> This argument has nothing to do with the Boost license, as practically every open source license allows the same forking.

> Looking back at how this blew up, it was actually Daniel who asked you not to "fork D's syntax" and then Dicebot merely reinforced that, before you both went overboard.

Actually, I usually agree with most of what Dicebot says in other threads. He is intelligent, analytical and focused. So I was a bit surprised here, but anyone can be tired and have a bad day, and the reasons are not important anyway.

Besides, he is not alone in thinking that a fork would be WRONG, so that tells me that the team-building process behind the selection might have been too much top-down and that some community building efforts are lacking.

In software process improvement you need to spend time on changes in policies so that you bring everyone with you (or in the worst case break up all teams and rebuild them from scratch, very costly ;-)

I also think that the GPL would be a more fitting license for D, given the democratic process and the community aspect.

But I would not modify the source then. So the license sure matters. MIT/BSD has traditionally been used for reference implementations for commercial closed source refinement. It is basically "take this and do whatever you want, no strings attached, but don't blame me for failures" licenses.

But you need to choose, because in open source:

product == source-code + license
support == forums/community
end users == people who download the source-code

We are only end users, not D devs. Maybe later devs, but currently just end users that evaluate the "product", which includes the license.

> The real issue is that historically any programming language didn't want a bunch of incompatible syntax dialects floating around, as that makes it difficult for many devs to understand what the language proper actually consists of.  That concern about "fragmentation" is all Daniel and Dicebot were speaking to.

I know a fair share of the history of programming languages. Lots of dialects did not make them less popular as a "group". On the contrary. It probably increased their proliferation. Inconvenient? Sure.

Pascal would have died without Turbo Pascal, TP and C was better than regular Pascal…

C++ and objective-C did not make C irrelevant. IMO C++ made it necessary to come up with much needed improvements to C that probably would never have come about if C++ did not exist.

SQL and C leaves a lot of stuff implementation defined. The uptake of these 2 is huge.

And what is a dialect and what is a new language? Aren't most C-like languages more or less dialects with the same root?

> However, I've noted that is not a reason to frown on syntax experimentation like you and ketmar want to do, as your syntax tweaking is far from a full-blown or popular dialect yet.  I've also noted that there may be a modern solution to such a problem, automated syntax translation for different dialects.

Yeah, that is my goal for my experiments for now. To have a distinct pre-amble in the head of each source code file and provide 2 parsers and keep it compatible with a restricted set of D (no GC).

However a fork is no real threat to D for the following reasons:

1. Walter Bright is a good C++ programmer with intimate knowledge of the D compiler internals. If a D dialect is good he can implement the good features in the main branch with less effort. Copyright does not constrain this. (only patents)

2. To fund a fork you probably have to close the source code and target small specialised commercial markets. That means high licensing costs. Which in turn means that for every sale of a closed source dialect there will be 100s of users looking for a free version. It could looked upon as free marketing.

This is my take on this: I don't think a fork is a bad thing, and I think BSD/MIT style licensing increase the probability of a fork down the road compared to GPL. The payoff for forking is simply higher with a liberal license.