Different kind of votings (Re: Taking a step back)

[Malcolm Wallace]

On 7 Nov 2015, at 03:49, wren romano wrote:

> The real problem is the growing divide in the community between the
> "liberals" vs the "conservatives". We could define these groups as
> those who're willing to break things vs want more stability, or as
> those who embrace polymorphism vs those who want to minimize mental
> type inference, or a few other ways I'm sure. How exactly we define
> the groups doesn't much matter imo; 

I agree with Gershom (and probably Wren too!) that characterising the community discord as a split between two camps is neither accurate nor helpful.  But I particularly want us to get away from the idea that those who oppose any particular proposed change, tend to be against language changes in general.  It is simply not the case, for any of the recent disputed proposals.  Many of the recent objectors are (or have been) themselves language designers, compiler implementers, and indeed made radical language proposals themselves.  I do not see any "conservative" party here at all.  People who disagree with recent proposals do so with specific technical and sociological arguments.  That's it.  Some supporters of those proposals might prefer it if they could dismiss the opponents as simply disliking all change, and therefore that their arguments are not worth engaging with.  That is a category mistake.

Regards,
    Malcolm