MRP, 3-year-support-window, and the non-requirement of CPP

[Bardur Arantsson]

On 10/06/2015 10:12 AM, Johan Tibell wrote:
> (Resending with smaller recipient list to avoid getting stuck in the
> moderator queue.)
> 
> On Tue, Oct 6, 2015 at 9:10 AM, Herbert Valerio Riedel <hvr at gnu.org> wrote:
> 
>> PS: I'm a bit disappointed you seem to dismiss this proposal right away
>>     categorically without giving us a chance to address your
>>     concerns. The proposal is not a rigid all-or-nothing thing that
>>     can't be tweaked and revised.  That's why we're having these
>>     proposal-discussions in the first place (rather than doing blind
>>     +1/-1 polls), so we can hear everyone out and try to maximise the
>>     agreement (even if we will never reach 100% consensus on any
>>     proposal).
>>
>>     So please, keep on discussing!
>>
> 
> The problem by discussions is that they are done between two groups with
> quite a difference in experience. On one hand you have people like Bryan,
> who have considerable contributions to the Haskell ecosystem and much
> experience in large scale software development (e.g. from Facebook). On the
> other hand you have people who don't. That's okay. We've all been at the
> latter group at some point of our career.
> 

Given that Facebook's motto is "move fast and break things", I'm not
sure what to make of this appeal to authority.

Ignoring the condescension...

> What's frustrating is that people don't take a step bad and realize that
> they might be in the latter group and should perhaps listen to those in the
> former.

Have you considered that people might actually have done that and just
come to a different conclusion from yours?

Have you also considered that people *you've* put in the latter group
might actually be in the former in terms of general experience on large
language ecosystems/projects/etc.?

(Certainly contributing to the Haskell ecosystem does signify a certain
level of understanding/insight and shouldn't be *discounted*, but nor
should it be used to just outright discount the opinions of others
without good reason.)

> This doesn't happen, instead we get lots of "C++ and Java so bad
> and we don't want to be like them." Haskell is not at risk of becoming C++
> or Java (which are a large improvement compared to the languages came
> before them). We're at risk of missing our window of opportunity. I think
> that would be a shame, as I think Haskell is a step forward compared to
> those languages and I would like to see more software that used be written
> in Haskell.

If Haskell is not appealing enough to overcome these obstacles, then
it's not very appealing, period. That is: if *this* is the deciding
factor, then perhaps one *shouldn't* be using Haskell. (That would be a
perfectly legitimate business decision.)

> 
> We've been through this many times before on the libraries list. I'm not
> going to win an argument on this mailing list. Between maintaining
> libraries you all use and managing a largish team at Google, I don't have
> much time for a discussion which approaches a hundred emails and is won by
> virtue of having lots of time to write emails.
> 

I'm sure nobody other than you has any drains on their time outside of
posting to this list.

(And no, if you're going to argue like you did in this post, then you
*aren't* going to win any arguments. That's pretty much a
self-fulfilling prophesy.)

Regards,