On 6/11/11 12:36 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
"Andrei Alexandrescu"<seewebsiteforem...@erdani.org> wrote in message
news:isualt$hf2$1...@digitalmars.com...
Combining existing features towards new ends is in some ways more
difficult than language design because you play within a confined ground,
and I am a bit disappointed that a few posters have shown only contempt
for such an effort.
That analysis of the situation hinges on the steadfast notion that Flag is a
great thing.
Actually my point there was that we should be coy at this point about
changing the language. Flag doesn't have much to do with it. It is clear
to me that a language change would obviate Flag and would have
additional advantages. The point is it would also have disadvantages.
I absolutely appreciate doing things in library instead of language
when reasonable to do so. You don't see me asking for map/reduce or
ranges to be built into the language, do you? What a lot of people
*don't* like is this seemingly frequent pattern:
1. Andrei comes up with something he feels is a great idea (And you
do have a lot of genuinely great ideas, don't get me wrong. Probably
more than most of us, certainly including me.)
2. The idea is posted to the NG ostensibly for discussion.
3. Andrei shoots down every objection as being wrong, failing to
understand the idea's greatness, or some meta-argument trump card
like "X is the N-word of the programming world" is pulled out.
4. The proposed idea can't possibly have any significant flaws, so
everyone else on the board is obviously in contempt of something more
fundamental, in this case, the strategy of preferring library
solutions over language additions.
I thought what I was doing was to rationally discuss the proposal.
Clearly I am in favor of it since I'm proposing it. But that doesn't
mean I need to resort to eliciting emotional response, demeaning the
counter-arguments, or discussing the competence or ulterior motives of
the opponents.
Just because some of us feel this one particular thing doesn't work well in
library, does *not* imply we think new features are generally preferable as
language additions. So please stop leaping to that conclusion.
Consider two statements:
1. "I dislike Flag. It looks ugly to me."
2. "I dislike Flag. Instead I want named arguments."
There is little retort to (1) - it simply counts as a vote against. For
(2) the course of action is to point out the liabilities of changing the
language.
Andrei
