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I think it's also worth highlighting this: no successful language-indeed, no successful free software project of any sort is a democracy [...] Successful

I think it's also worth highlighting this: no successful language-indeed, no successful free software project of any sort is a democracy [...] Successful languages pay attention to what people want, but to change the language according to what most people want is, I believe, a recipe for chaos and incoherence. I believe that every successful language must have a coherent vision that is shared by a relatively small group of people. which is essentially the "benevolent dictatorship" principle; it's hard to swallow because developers tend to imagine open source projects as "owned by the people". I believe too that projects "owned by the people" end like The Homer™, and I'm actually curious, as the author, about: I would be interested to hear of a counter-example

eikenberry 7y ago
Debian. They are one of the largest free software projects and are very democratic.
tsimionescu 7y ago
Isn't C++ committee-driven, which could be considered a type of democratic process? Or would that not be considered an open-source project? On that note, I also seem to remember that LLVM/Clang are pretty democratic, but I haven't dug deeply and may be completely wrong.
- gradys 7y ago
  The analogy Go : C++ :: Go's governance : C++'s governance works pretty well. Maybe C++ is a good example of this, and maybe that is a good way to build a language like C++, but it might be a bad way to make a language like Go.
- repolfx 7y ago
  Large parts of Java are handled via the Java Community Process.
- pizza234 7y ago
  Well, interestingly, "design by comittee" is a pejorative, so it raises the question whether C++ is, in a (specific, not universal) sense, a success or not.
  - einpoklum 7y ago
    C++'s design by committee is well-suited to achieve one of the key goals in the (ongoing) design on the language, which is maintaining extreme backwards compatibility and extensive mulling of potential changes by numerous independent interested parties so that changes that do make it in are nearly-consensual. You could argue whether those are the goals a language should pursue, but it's pretty obvious a central designer with free reign would not have achieved those goals.

eikenberry 7y ago

Debian. They are one of the largest free software projects and are very democratic.

tsimionescu 7y ago

Isn't C++ committee-driven, which could be considered a type of democratic process? Or would that not be considered an open-source project? On that note, I also seem to remember that LLVM/Clang are pretty democratic, but I haven't dug deeply and may be completely wrong.

gradys 7y ago
The analogy Go : C++ :: Go's governance : C++'s governance works pretty well. Maybe C++ is a good example of this, and maybe that is a good way to build a language like C++, but it might be a bad way to make a language like Go.
repolfx 7y ago
Large parts of Java are handled via the Java Community Process.
pizza234 7y ago
Well, interestingly, "design by comittee" is a pejorative, so it raises the question whether C++ is, in a (specific, not universal) sense, a success or not.
- einpoklum 7y ago
  C++'s design by committee is well-suited to achieve one of the key goals in the (ongoing) design on the language, which is maintaining extreme backwards compatibility and extensive mulling of potential changes by numerous independent interested parties so that changes that do make it in are nearly-consensual. You could argue whether those are the goals a language should pursue, but it's pretty obvious a central designer with free reign would not have achieved those goals.