On Monday, 29 December 2014 at 19:11:04 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 12/29/14 10:58 AM, Joakim wrote:
>> It also means more people asking for stuff, then doing nothing to
>> contribute towards it, as though the D community is their slave labor.
>
> If we, the D community, want D to succeed, we must change this attitude. -- Andrei

I was just going to let this go without answering, as it's ambiguous, but since Dicebot just said something similar to what I'd have said, I'll bite.  What do you mean by this?  That the people asking for stuff then doing nothing have to change their attitude or those in the D community, like Dicebot and me, who point out that their approach is unrealistic should change our attitude?

And regardless of your answer to that question, what do you see as "success" for D and how do you plan to get there, given what you know now?  It's possible that it's already a success for the community, as it works well enough for the thousands using and handful contributing to it, and they do not see your million-user goal as worth putting effort into.

I'll note that I'd like to see D reach a million users, and I'm doing my small part by trying to get it on the gigantic Android install base, but my desire and single new port doesn't mean much since those will not be enough to get D to a million, and I'm not interested in working on Windows tooling or some other issues that might get it there.

Similarly, whatever the definition of success is, whether yours or the community's, it's meaningless without a plan and a push to get there.  I know you can't make people follow your plan, assuming you have one (not a dig, you just may not know how to get to a million yet), but you can still sketch out some specific efforts that you'd like to enable (more user bounties or better ways to get input from commercial users or a much-improved GC, which you have said you'd push for in a reddit comment) or put out a public agenda/roadmap you'd like to see prioritized.

Without some purposeful steps in the direction of your "success," the D community is unlikely to randomly amble along towards where you're hoping, at least not in the next couple decades. ;)

+1
you are wright. i think, on the chance of being "Willoughbeed",
that there needs to be a real plan.
It must include window users and a windows usable sdk.

On Thursday, 1 January 2015 at 10:48:10 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> On Monday, 29 December 2014 at 19:11:04 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> On 12/29/14 10:58 AM, Joakim wrote:
>>> It also means more people asking for stuff, then doing nothing to
>>> contribute towards it, as though the D community is their slave labor.
>>
>> If we, the D community, want D to succeed, we must change this attitude. -- Andrei
>
> I was just going to let this go without answering, as it's ambiguous, but since Dicebot just said something similar to what I'd have said, I'll bite.  What do you mean by this?  That the people asking for stuff then doing nothing have to change their attitude or those in the D community, like Dicebot and me, who point out that their approach is unrealistic should change our attitude?
>
> And regardless of your answer to that question, what do you see as "success" for D and how do you plan to get there, given what you know now?  It's possible that it's already a success for the community, as it works well enough for the thousands using and handful contributing to it, and they do not see your million-user goal as worth putting effort into.
>
> I'll note that I'd like to see D reach a million users, and I'm doing my small part by trying to get it on the gigantic Android install base, but my desire and single new port doesn't mean much since those will not be enough to get D to a million, and I'm not interested in working on Windows tooling or some other issues that might get it there.
>
> Similarly, whatever the definition of success is, whether yours or the community's, it's meaningless without a plan and a push to get there.  I know you can't make people follow your plan, assuming you have one (not a dig, you just may not know how to get to a million yet), but you can still sketch out some specific efforts that you'd like to enable (more user bounties or better ways to get input from commercial users or a much-improved GC, which you have said you'd push for in a reddit comment) or put out a public agenda/roadmap you'd like to see prioritized.
>
> Without some purposeful steps in the direction of your "success," the D community is unlikely to randomly amble along towards where you're hoping, at least not in the next couple decades. ;)

On Wednesday, 31 December 2014 at 21:05:41 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
> So, getting back to this. What do I see wrong in this thread? It creates a clear message : you don't really want to be a D contributor.
>
> Once you start doing it, all privileges of doubt that belong to "user" are lost and bunch of obligations suddenly appears. And of all obligation worst offender written by Gary is requirement to strongly identify oneself with a D project.
>
> Let's get it straight : I don't want to ever be associated with D upstream. I have never wanted to be part of Phobos development team. Only reason I have write access is that last time I complained about issues in pull request management Andrei has suddenly given me write access and asked to fix it myself. Probably my biggest mistake was agreeing to do it instead of answering "fuck you" like Manu did.
>
> And I find this comment by Manu absolutely outrageous:
>
>> Surely you can understand that my desire to *use* D as a tool is not
>> at odds with my desire to continue to work in the fields that I prefer
>> to work in?
>
> You can hardly even imagine how angry I was when reading it and amount of spoken swearwords that have never reached the NG. Here I am just being told in most straightforward way "I don't want to work on things I need because I have better things to do so you must do those things instead as you can't do anything better anyway".
>
> Yes, there was an argument about long-term profit caring about users from other fields bring. Sorry, but D community is simply not big enough to afford such long-term investments. To make work on Windows toolchain of any interest to me following future assumption would need to hold true:
>
> - it will actually help to attract new users
> - at least some portion of this added user base will decide to contribute back, directly or indirectly
> - some of resulting contributions will benefit Linux ecosystem too
> - that final added value will be higher than original investment
>
> It will take quite a while. I appreciate feedback about what is wrong but not _demands_ about what to work on. If kind acceptance of any demands is considered inherent duty of anyone it least a bit associated with D dev team I kindly ask to remove any access from me to avoid any further confusion. There is no way I will oblige to image written down by Gary in this thread.

Just because you contribute to D it doesn't give you any authority to get angry at users or:

* Pull rank just because you contribute
* refusing to take seriously requests for features to be implemented/finished
* trying to belittle user requests
* treating non-contributing users as lesser than you
* propagating an attitude of 'contribute or gtfo'

The vast majority of users of D will *never* contribute anything *ever* but they will (from time to time) ask for something. Just deal with it. Add it to an issue tracker and triage. Users should be put first in all cases, period! Especially if they are experiencing problems or shortcomings from 'your' product. Just because it's free doesn't mean users needs should be disregarded or that support should not be given.

I'm seriously considering writing a new blog article for reddit, highlighting the attitudes in this discussion because they are so seriously anti-success.

On Thursday, 1 January 2015 at 12:55:29 UTC, Gary Willoughby wrote:
> On Wednesday, 31 December 2014 at 21:05:41 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
>> So, getting back to this. What do I see wrong in this thread? It creates a clear message : you don't really want to be a D contributor.
>>
>> Once you start doing it, all privileges of doubt that belong to "user" are lost and bunch of obligations suddenly appears. And of all obligation worst offender written by Gary is requirement to strongly identify oneself with a D project.
>>
>> Let's get it straight : I don't want to ever be associated with D upstream. I have never wanted to be part of Phobos development team. Only reason I have write access is that last time I complained about issues in pull request management Andrei has suddenly given me write access and asked to fix it myself. Probably my biggest mistake was agreeing to do it instead of answering "fuck you" like Manu did.
>>
>> And I find this comment by Manu absolutely outrageous:
>>
>>> Surely you can understand that my desire to *use* D as a tool is not
>>> at odds with my desire to continue to work in the fields that I prefer
>>> to work in?
>>
>> You can hardly even imagine how angry I was when reading it and amount of spoken swearwords that have never reached the NG. Here I am just being told in most straightforward way "I don't want to work on things I need because I have better things to do so you must do those things instead as you can't do anything better anyway".
>>
>> Yes, there was an argument about long-term profit caring about users from other fields bring. Sorry, but D community is simply not big enough to afford such long-term investments. To make work on Windows toolchain of any interest to me following future assumption would need to hold true:
>>
>> - it will actually help to attract new users
>> - at least some portion of this added user base will decide to contribute back, directly or indirectly
>> - some of resulting contributions will benefit Linux ecosystem too
>> - that final added value will be higher than original investment
>>
>> It will take quite a while. I appreciate feedback about what is wrong but not _demands_ about what to work on. If kind acceptance of any demands is considered inherent duty of anyone it least a bit associated with D dev team I kindly ask to remove any access from me to avoid any further confusion. There is no way I will oblige to image written down by Gary in this thread.
>
> Just because you contribute to D it doesn't give you any authority to get angry at users or:
He does not need any permission to get angry. Don't forget that he
remains civil despite being angry.
> * refusing to take seriously requests for features to be implemented/finished
Actually he does not need authority for this, because he isn't obliged
to do this in the first place.
> * trying to belittle user requests
He didn't. All he's doing is to point out that to put something onto the agenda
of the D community, doing it yourself is the most effective way. The only other way is to wait for someone else doing it which might never happen at all.
> * treating non-contributing users as lesser than you
He does not.
> * propagating an attitude of 'contribute or gtfo'
He does not. It's totally appropriate to point out that no one is or will be working on something someone requests. Manu's work to promote D to his colleagues is very welcome and I am sure everyone does acknowledge it. His feedback form doing so is noted, some action to improve the documentation is already underway.

> This and that didn't work ootb, this was a hindrance, because of that we're using node.js now.

---> Okay

> It's this way for years now, what the fuck are you guys doing? I won't be doing anything, but you guys have to.

---> Getting angry is totally natural.

On Thursday, 1 January 2015 at 13:20:46 UTC, Tobias Pankrath wrote:
>> It's this way for years now, what the fuck are you guys doing? I won't be doing anything, but you guys have to.
>
> ---> Getting angry is totally natural.

True. I hate seeing threads like this when Manu brings some really useful and important feedback from industry about his experiences promoting D to the very people D's creators are trying to cater for and it just turns into a major flamefest.

If Manu is not to be listened to regarding his experiences then who *do* we listen to?

On Thursday, 1 January 2015 at 13:25:53 UTC, Gary Willoughby wrote:
> On Thursday, 1 January 2015 at 13:20:46 UTC, Tobias Pankrath wrote:
>>> It's this way for years now, what the fuck are you guys doing? I won't be doing anything, but you guys have to.
>>
>> ---> Getting angry is totally natural.
>
> True. I hate seeing threads like this when Manu brings some really useful and important feedback from industry about his experiences promoting D to the very people D's creators are trying to cater for and it just turns into a major flamefest.
>
> If Manu is not to be listened to regarding his experiences then who *do* we listen to?

I agree that Manu wasn't treated in a fair manner, but Dicebot is not to blame. He is just pointing out the obvious.

On 1 January 2015 at 23:54, Tobias Pankrath via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, 1 January 2015 at 13:25:53 UTC, Gary Willoughby wrote:
>>
>> On Thursday, 1 January 2015 at 13:20:46 UTC, Tobias Pankrath wrote:
>>>>
>>>> It's this way for years now, what the fuck are you guys doing? I won't be doing anything, but you guys have to.
>>>
>>>
>>> ---> Getting angry is totally natural.
>>
>>
>> True. I hate seeing threads like this when Manu brings some really useful and important feedback from industry about his experiences promoting D to the very people D's creators are trying to cater for and it just turns into a major flamefest.
>>
>> If Manu is not to be listened to regarding his experiences then who *do* we listen to?
>
>
> I agree that Manu wasn't treated in a fair manner, but Dicebot is not to blame. He is just pointing out the obvious.

I just want to say that I think you guys are getting even more invested in this conversation than I am at this stage. I'm a bit discouraged by the tone that arose, but regardless, I think the outcome has been as good as it could have been, there has already been some great action; Walter has taken a look at some debugger related issues already, and documentation has spawned a lot of conversation. I'm actually quite happy with the practical outcomes here so far, and appreciate the effort.

On Thursday, 1 January 2015 at 13:20:46 UTC, Tobias Pankrath wrote:
> On Thursday, 1 January 2015 at 12:55:29 UTC, Gary Willoughby wrote:
>> Just because you contribute to D it doesn't give you any authority to get angry at users or:
> He does not need any permission to get angry. Don't forget that he
> remains civil despite being angry.

Even he didnt think he'd been civil or else he wouldnt be making excuses like (paraphrased) "being nice is not in my skill set", or "i've probably written worse."

Actually that's past uncivil and pretty close to asshole IMO.

On 01/01/15 13:55, Gary Willoughby via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> I'm seriously considering writing a new blog article for reddit, highlighting
> the attitudes in this discussion because they are so seriously anti-success.

I think that would be a bad idea, because the most likely result would be only to further inflame bad feeling that is currently starting to calm down, and to result in people outside the D community being put off from attempting to take part.

I also think that, regardless of the broader issues, there is no excuse for throwing around the kind of accusations you threw at Dicebot.  Even if you most sincerely believe that someone is behaving badly, that kind of vituperative personal attack has no place in any responsible community.

There's more than one way to be "anti-success", and one sadly-too-common way is to indulge in such personal attacks, which don't just cause bad feeling for the recipient but for plenty of other community members who have to read them, and wonder whether they too will be attacked for venturing an opinion.

On Thursday, 1 January 2015 at 14:24:36 UTC, Joseph Rushton Wakeling via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On 01/01/15 13:55, Gary Willoughby via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> I'm seriously considering writing a new blog article for reddit, highlighting
>> the attitudes in this discussion because they are so seriously anti-success.
>
> I think that would be a bad idea, because the most likely result would be only to further inflame bad feeling that is currently starting to calm down, and to result in people outside the D community being put off from attempting to take part.
>
> I also think that, regardless of the broader issues, there is no excuse for throwing around the kind of accusations you threw at Dicebot.  Even if you most sincerely believe that someone is behaving badly, that kind of vituperative personal attack has no place in any responsible community.
>
> There's more than one way to be "anti-success", and one sadly-too-common way is to indulge in such personal attacks, which don't just cause bad feeling for the recipient but for plenty of other community members who have to read them, and wonder whether they too will be attacked for venturing an opinion.

Probably. I'll leave it here and as Manu has said maybe this conversation is past its usefulness now. I'll go cool off.