On Wednesday, 16 September 2015 at 20:44:00 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 9/16/2015 7:16 AM, Bruno Medeiros wrote:
>> On 28/08/2015 22:59, Walter Bright wrote:
>>> People told me I couldn't write a C compiler, then told me I couldn't
>>> write a C++ compiler. I'm still the only person who has ever implemented
>>> a complete C++ compiler (C++98). Then they all (100%) laughed at me for
>>> starting D, saying nobody would ever use it.
>>>
>>> My whole career is built on stepping over people who told me I couldn't
>>> do anything and wouldn't amount to anything.
>>
>> So your whole career is fundamentally based not on bringing value to the
>> software world, but rather merely proving people wrong? That amounts to living
>> your professional life in thrall of other people's validation, and it's not
>> commendable at all. It's a waste of your potential.
>>
>> It is only worthwhile to prove people wrong when it brings you a considerable
>> amount of either monetary resources or clout - and more so than you would have
>> got doing something else with your time.
>>
>> It's not clear to me that was always the case throughout your career... was it?
>
> Wow, such an interpretation never occurred to me. I will reiterate that I worked on things that I believed had value and nobody else did. I.e. I did not need validation from others.

Yeah, I was a bit stunned that that is what Bruno took from your post.  I don't think anybody would question that writing a C or C++ compiler in the '80s and '90s had value, and I'm sure you did pretty well off them, considering you retired at 42 (http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/how-i-came-to-write-d/240165322).

Your point is that nobody thought _you_ or you _alone_ could do these valuable things, and you repeatedly proved them wrong.  Those doubting you in this thread, about improving the dmd backend so it's competitive with llvm/gcc while still having time to work on the frontend, may or may not turn out to be right, but you certainly seem to have a good track record at proving such doubters wrong.

On Wednesday, 16 September 2015 at 14:40:26 UTC, Bruno Medeiros wrote:
> And on this aspect I think the development of D does very poorly. Often people clamored for a feature or change (whether people in the D community, or the C++ one), and Walter you went ahead and did it, regardless of whether it will actually increase D usage in the long run. You are prone to this, given your nature to please people who ask for things, or to prove people wrong (as you yourself admitted).
>
> I apologize for not remembering any example at the moment, but I know there was quite a few, especially many years back. It usually went like this:
>
> C++ community guy: "D is crap, it's not gonna be used without X"
> *some time later*
> Walter: "Ok, I've now implemented X in D!"
> the same C++ community guy: either finds another feature or change to complain about (repeat), or goes silent, or goes "meh, D is still not good"
> Me and other people from D community: "ok... now we have a new half-baked functionality in D, adding complexity for little value, and put here only to please people that are extremely unlikely to ever be using D whatever any case"...

I find this assessment inaccurate. In my own experience, I have come to see Walter as Dr. No (in a good sense!) in that he has said no to a great many feature requests over the years. The instances where a feature was implemented that took the community by surprise have been rare indeed. And even then, we are not privy to the support requests and other discussions that Walter has with the businesses using D. I'm confident that what goes on in his head when deciding to pursue a change or enhancement has little to do with willy-nilly complaints by C++ users.

On 17/09/2015 08:10, Joakim wrote:
> Yeah, I was a bit stunned that that is what Bruno took from your post.
> I don't think anybody would question that writing a C or C++ compiler in
> the '80s and '90s had value, and I'm sure you did pretty well off them,
> considering you retired at 42
> (http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/how-i-came-to-write-d/240165322).
>

I didn't say that Walter's previous work didn't bring *any* value to the software world. It's not like people challenged him to write efficient lolcode or brainfuck(*) compilers, or some other silly challenge, which if he did would have a been a massive waste of time - even if it was technically a very admirable feat.

(*) - Yeah those languages weren't around at the time, but that's just an example.

My point was that one would certainly bring *more* value to the software world, if that is the primary focus of one's career, instead of merely proving people wrong.

That doesn't mean either one has to be an emotionless robot that never does something just for the sake of ego-boosting (which is really the only reward of proving people wrong - unless there are some monetary or other resources at stake). But Walter has so many stories of "I did this [massive project] to prove people wrong." which is what makes me wonder if there isn't too much focus on ego validation.


-- 
Bruno Medeiros
https://twitter.com/brunodomedeiros

On 17/09/2015 09:06, Mike Parker wrote:
> On Wednesday, 16 September 2015 at 14:40:26 UTC, Bruno Medeiros wrote:
>> And on this aspect I think the development of D does very poorly.
>> Often people clamored for a feature or change (whether people in the D
>> community, or the C++ one), and Walter you went ahead and did it,
>> regardless of whether it will actually increase D usage in the long
>> run. You are prone to this, given your nature to please people who ask
>> for things, or to prove people wrong (as you yourself admitted).
>>
>> I apologize for not remembering any example at the moment, but I know
>> there was quite a few, especially many years back. It usually went
>> like this:
>>
>> C++ community guy: "D is crap, it's not gonna be used without X"
>> *some time later*
>> Walter: "Ok, I've now implemented X in D!"
>> the same C++ community guy: either finds another feature or change to
>> complain about (repeat), or goes silent, or goes "meh, D is still not
>> good"
>> Me and other people from D community: "ok... now we have a new
>> half-baked functionality in D, adding complexity for little value, and
>> put here only to please people that are extremely unlikely to ever be
>> using D whatever any case"...
>
> I find this assessment inaccurate. In my own experience, I have come to
> see Walter as Dr. No (in a good sense!) in that he has said no to a
> great many feature requests over the years. The instances where a
> feature was implemented that took the community by surprise have been
> rare indeed. And even then, we are not privy to the support requests and
> other discussions that Walter has with the businesses using D. I'm
> confident that what goes on in his head when deciding to pursue a change
> or enhancement has little to do with willy-nilly complaints by C++ users.

Dr. No for the D community. If someone from D community said "D won't succeed without X", or "D can't be made to work without X", that wouldn't have much clout with Walter. (unless that someone is behind a company using D commercially, or considering so)

But if people from the C++ community said it, OMG, then Walter goes "let's add it to D!", just to prove a point or something. *Mind you*: all this I'm saying is pre TDPL book stuff. After the book was out, things stabilized. But way back, even more so before D2, it would happen quite often. Again apologies for no references or examples, but this is all stuff from 4-7 years ago so it's hard to remember exact cases.

-- 
Bruno Medeiros
https://twitter.com/brunodomedeiros

On 17/09/2015 12:57, Bruno Medeiros wrote:
> But if people from the C++ community said it, OMG, then Walter goes
> "let's add it to D!", just to prove a point or something. *Mind you*:
> all this I'm saying is pre TDPL book stuff. After the book was out,
> things stabilized. But way back, even more so before D2, it would happen
> quite often. Again apologies for no references or examples, but this is
> all stuff from 4-7 years ago so it's hard to remember exact cases.

I do remember though, that the turning point for this was when Andrei joined the D team. Before that it was more or less like this:
Walter was the master compiler writer, wohoo, and if someone challenged him to add a feature, it went in. In most cases maybe Walter wasn't challenged directly, but someone in the C++ community would say "Ha, wouldn't it be great if C++ had X!", and then if D didn't had X already, it would get added, so Walter would go "Oh, you know what, D has X!!"

Little consideration was given to whether X was worthwhile or not in the big picture.

After Andrei came on board, things improved and became more like:
Andrei: "Hold on, first let's see if the use case for X is actually a real world need or not. If it is, let's see if it is not satisfactory to use existing D language features to solve that use case. And if it's not, only then we'll consider adding it. But even so let's try to add X in a more generic way, so that it easier to implement and/or so that it could solve other use cases as well."

-- 
Bruno Medeiros
https://twitter.com/brunodomedeiros

Template metaprogramming is probably the only notable feature borrowed from C++ (more like a redesign?), the rest looks more like borrowed from Java. This actually turns C++ programmers away when they see so many things are done differently from C++.

On Thursday, 17 September 2015 at 11:57:29 UTC, Bruno Medeiros wrote:
>
> *Mind you*: all this I'm saying is pre TDPL book stuff. After the book was out, things stabilized.

Can I speak for the people who only became familiar with D after TDPL and say I don't really care about what you're talking about?

On Thursday, 17 September 2015 at 11:47:36 UTC, Bruno Medeiros wrote:
> On 17/09/2015 08:10, Joakim wrote:
>> Yeah, I was a bit stunned that that is what Bruno took from your post.
>> I don't think anybody would question that writing a C or C++ compiler in
>> the '80s and '90s had value, and I'm sure you did pretty well off them,
>> considering you retired at 42
>> (http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/how-i-came-to-write-d/240165322).
>>
>
> I didn't say that Walter's previous work didn't bring *any* value to the software world. It's not like people challenged him to write efficient lolcode or brainfuck(*) compilers, or some other silly challenge, which if he did would have a been a massive waste of time - even if it was technically a very admirable feat.
>
> (*) - Yeah those languages weren't around at the time, but that's just an example.
>
> My point was that one would certainly bring *more* value to the software world, if that is the primary focus of one's career, instead of merely proving people wrong.
>
> That doesn't mean either one has to be an emotionless robot that never does something just for the sake of ego-boosting (which is really the only reward of proving people wrong - unless there are some monetary or other resources at stake). But Walter has so many stories of "I did this [massive project] to prove people wrong." which is what makes me wonder if there isn't too much focus on ego validation.

Human beings are funny creatures, and able people like to be stretched to the limit of what's possible.  Having someone tell you there is no way you can do that is a hint that it's quite a difficult problem, and yet you may correctly perceive how it may be done.  A highly talented person of this sort has many ways in which in theory they might add most value, but many fewer viable ways, because they find it harder than most to do what they don't want to do.  (And creativity comes when you are following a path that is within you).  Cattell and Eysenck wrote about this, and lately Professor Bruce Charlton at Iqpersonalitygenius blog.

Plus, following what moves you may be a better guide than rational optimisation given that with the latter one is often fooling oneself since one doesn't even understand the structure of social calculus.

I personally find Walter's attitude quite inspiring, although I am not familiar with the pre TDPL days and not so interested at this moment.  At least you can say that he recognizes that management is difficult for him and did bring Andrei alongside, not something easy to do to yield total control.

Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
> On 5 Sep 2015 11:25 pm, "Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d" < digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On 9/5/2015 5:54 AM, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Saturday, 5 September 2015 at 08:15:06 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> And your post did it too.
>>>> 
>>>> If you're using the Thunderbird news reader, typing Cntl-U will show
> the full
>>>> source of the message.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> This is perfectly normal for emails and such. They are
> multipart/alternative
>>> MIME messages which pack different versions of the same message together
> and
>>> your client picks its preferred one to show you.
>>> 
>>> It is kinda useless because the html version adds zero value, but the
> text
>>> version is still there to so your client should just ignore it.
>> 
>> 
>> I know, and my client does, but given the size of the n.g. message
> database, doubling its size for no added value makes it slower.
> 
> There's no way to change the Gmail client behaviour.  And I'm assuming that it isn't a recent feature either.

Considering the messy quoting in your posts I'd actually prefer HTML messages.