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| Posted by H. S. Teoh in reply to Walter Bright | PermalinkReply |
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H. S. Teoh
Posted in reply to Walter Bright
| On Tue, Jan 09, 2024 at 01:11:39PM -0800, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On 1/9/2024 9:42 AM, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> > From a technical standpoint, D has no parallels that I know of -- it comes very close to my ideal of what a programming language should be. But the way it's managed leaves a lot to be desired. It would be a pity for this beautiful language to languish when under a different style of management it could be flourishing and taking over the world.
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> Thank you for the kind compliments about D. Perhaps one reason it is such a nice language is because I say "no" to most enhancements? D would have version algebra and macros if it was a committee. Some features are great ideas, until you've used them for 10 years, and come to the realization that they aren't so good of an idea.
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> Aesthetic appeal is a big deal. D has got to look good on the screen, because after all, we spend most "programming" time just staring at the code. I remember once attending a C++ conference where the presenter had slides of his innovative ideas, and I had the thought that there was no way to format that or rewrite it so it looked good. I've had that experience many times with C++.
It's C++, aesthetic appeal isn't even on the list. :-D
[...]
> The end goal for me with D is that it will no longer need me.
Wonderful!
The way it's going right now, however, appears to be in the complete opposite direction.
> As for Phobos, I am not involved with it directly. There has been a sequence of people in charge of it, but that hasn't worked out too well. But there is a core team of 35 people (though some are inactive) that controls what goes into it:
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> https://github.com/orgs/dlang/teams/team-phobos
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> They have the authority to decide what goes in Phobos or not. I'm open to nominations to that team.
I'm on that list. ;-) But I haven't contributed for a long while now. Currently there isn't much incentive for me to do so. The barrier of entry is too high, both for contributor and reviewer -- even for a D veteran like me, if I can say so myself. The requirements are disproportionate for small changes, needless to say for big changes. And there are a lot of unstated, unwritten expectations. I don't have the energy / patience to second guess what's acceptable and what's not, when I could be writing code for my own projects instead.
> Anybody can bring attention on the n.g. to any PR that is being overlooked.
And they're unlikely to get any better response.
All of this could be justifiable. There may be solid technical reasons behind it all. But the message that would-be contributors are getting is unfortunately not inviting more of them to join in. So this situation persists. It is what it is.
T
--
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
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