On Wednesday, 24 November 2021 at 21:37:58 UTC, Dukc wrote:
>The assumption here appears to be that since the people we're trying to attract are not already using D, people already using D can't know what would buy them in, but a word from an outside complainer is more reliable. People know their own motivations best, right?
I think this overstating the issue. Not-yet-enthusiatic-but-interested people may be using D, but not for anything that they will commit to long term.
You need more of those to be enthusiastic in order to get frameworks built. You cannot make them enthusiastic without addressing the issues they have.
>Given that, It does not sound a very good idea to design the language around what everyone is lobbying for on the forums.
Early C++ compilers were buggy. Not a good example. Just a fun anecdote. (Even g++ was quite buggy for a very long time.)
As a designer you should ask yourself why N people independently point out weakness X, and then ask yourself what the total impact of X is.
>I'd much rather concentrate on specific bug reports, questions and improvement proposals. With them the designer can at least trust they show something that really matters, not just made-up excuses for some unacknowledged bias.
You should of course polish your product!
However, it is generally negative to add a long series of "improvements" to scratch some enthusiastic individual's itch and become slightly better at something you already have covered. You gain more from extending into areas that you do not cover well.
What would happen if the most enthusiastic C# or TypeScript users were given the freedom to add new cool features? The languages would eventually fail to appeal to any other group than the most enthusiastic ones.