4 ms·

To be honest, reading mainly blog posts, RFCs and summarisation comments, it did look like a thoughtful and organised process. However, there has been a constan

To be honest, reading mainly blog posts, RFCs and summarisation comments, it did look like a thoughtful and organised process. However, there has been a constant problem of tiresome work and "intellectual and emotional labour" of reading thousands pieces of feedback, some of which are emotionally charged, and many of which are duplicates or re-statements of similar ideas, and many of which have misunderstanding or mis-valuations of other ideas. I've heard that collecting and editing this huge amount of unstructured feedback into comprehensive and balanced summaries has been a huge drain of mental energy for the participants.

saghm 7y ago
I wasn't involved at all in the discussion, but having dove deep into async over the past few months since async/await was stabilized, I definitely am happy with the result of that process. Writing code with postfix `.await` feels very natural to me and it fits it much better with the surrounding code I write than a prefix version would. I can sympathize that participating in that process might not have been fun, but I really hope that the results of future discussions make me as happy as this one has.
- lightgreen 7y ago
  > Writing code with postfix `.await` feels very natural to me and it fits it much better with the surrounding code I write than a prefix version would. That’s your subjective point of view, not everyone agrees with it. Part of the problem is that Rust team failed to find a solution good enough for the most people and failed to communicate this decision. In particular the switch to .await syntax happened just couple weeks before it was finally stabilized. And await is not the only controversial decision made by the Rust team. Even if 10% of people unhappy that’s too much, because the next controversial feature will cause 10% more of unhappy people and so on. I hope they will do better next time.
  - sagichmal 7y ago
    > Even if 10% of people unhappy that’s too much You realize this is an impossible standard, right? Literally impossible.
    - lightgreen 7y ago
      I might be wrong but for C++ for example every C++ fan seems to happy about every new release (at least happy with new features, not lack of desired new features). Same for Java, IIRC the only controversial decision they made was the introduction of modules. Python 3 was a mistake, but generally Python users are happy with Python changes. 10% is not impossible. Even if this decision is ”right”, communication could be better: more options to play with different syntaxes, more time to get used to new syntax before stabilizing are just two possible ways to deal with the angry mob.
      - peteretep 7y ago
        How often is C++ adding features of that size though?
        rcxdude 7y ago
        They've literally just added the same feature.
        jcranmer 7y ago
        Major new features of this size in C++11 are lambdas, variadic templates, auto, and move references. C++14 adds generic lambdas. C++17 adds constexpr if and structured bindings. C++20 adds concepts, coroutines, and modules.
      - dunkelheit 7y ago
        > I might be wrong but for C++ for example every C++ fan seems to happy about every new release (at least happy with new features, not lack of desired new features). I believe you are mistaken. C++ community has a lot of diverse opinions about its features. As an old saying goes, it is possible to use only the good subset of C++ features, the problem is every shop has its own subset. Even about something as basic as exceptions there is no consensus. Similarly, not everybody is happy about the "modern C++" movement. I guess these people are just confident that thanks to serious commitment to backwards compatibility they will be able to continue writing code in their old grumpy ways so there is no need to loudly express their dissatisfaction. Rust community is much less fractured (in part because it is smaller and younger) and there is a sense that decisions made today will determine how everybody will write Rust code tomorrow. Combine that with efforts to encourage an inclusive discussion and you get a lot of disagreement visible in discussions, especially concerning aspects that are prone to bikeshedding.
  - kibwen 7y ago
    > In particular the switch to .await syntax happened just couple weeks before it was finally stabilized The syntax was introduced in May, while the feature was stabilized in November.
    - lightgreen 7y ago
      The final decision was made on 23rd of May, two weeks after new syntax was proposed and not even implemented yet. https://boats.gitlab.io/blog/post/await-decision/ https://boats.gitlab.io/blog/post/await-decision/
      - kibwen 7y ago
        The syntax had been proposed long before then; I (along with others) had been advocating for it the prior year. The May 6 blog post was merely the point at which the blog post author relented to the rest of the lang team to bring it up for a vote. As for your second sentence, RFCs are almost always accepted before they are implemented. There is an entirely separate round of review and approval before an accepted RFC can become a stable feature of the language.
        lightgreen 7y ago
        > As for your second sentence, RFCs are almost always accepted before they are implemented. That's fine when * RFCs are not controversial * RFCs does not change much before stabilisation > The syntax had been proposed long before then Let me rephrase it this way. It was only a couple of weeks when syntax became available in nightly before the final decision was made.

saghm 7y ago

I wasn't involved at all in the discussion, but having dove deep into async over the past few months since async/await was stabilized, I definitely am happy with the result of that process. Writing code with postfix `.await` feels very natural to me and it fits it much better with the surrounding code I write than a prefix version would. I can sympathize that participating in that process might not have been fun, but I really hope that the results of future discussions make me as happy as this one has.

lightgreen 7y ago
> Writing code with postfix `.await` feels very natural to me and it fits it much better with the surrounding code I write than a prefix version would. That’s your subjective point of view, not everyone agrees with it. Part of the problem is that Rust team failed to find a solution good enough for the most people and failed to communicate this decision. In particular the switch to .await syntax happened just couple weeks before it was finally stabilized. And await is not the only controversial decision made by the Rust team. Even if 10% of people unhappy that’s too much, because the next controversial feature will cause 10% more of unhappy people and so on. I hope they will do better next time.
- sagichmal 7y ago
  > Even if 10% of people unhappy that’s too much You realize this is an impossible standard, right? Literally impossible.
  - lightgreen 7y ago
    I might be wrong but for C++ for example every C++ fan seems to happy about every new release (at least happy with new features, not lack of desired new features). Same for Java, IIRC the only controversial decision they made was the introduction of modules. Python 3 was a mistake, but generally Python users are happy with Python changes. 10% is not impossible. Even if this decision is ”right”, communication could be better: more options to play with different syntaxes, more time to get used to new syntax before stabilizing are just two possible ways to deal with the angry mob.
    - peteretep 7y ago
      How often is C++ adding features of that size though?
      - rcxdude 7y ago
        They've literally just added the same feature.
      - jcranmer 7y ago
        Major new features of this size in C++11 are lambdas, variadic templates, auto, and move references. C++14 adds generic lambdas. C++17 adds constexpr if and structured bindings. C++20 adds concepts, coroutines, and modules.
    - dunkelheit 7y ago
      > I might be wrong but for C++ for example every C++ fan seems to happy about every new release (at least happy with new features, not lack of desired new features). I believe you are mistaken. C++ community has a lot of diverse opinions about its features. As an old saying goes, it is possible to use only the good subset of C++ features, the problem is every shop has its own subset. Even about something as basic as exceptions there is no consensus. Similarly, not everybody is happy about the "modern C++" movement. I guess these people are just confident that thanks to serious commitment to backwards compatibility they will be able to continue writing code in their old grumpy ways so there is no need to loudly express their dissatisfaction. Rust community is much less fractured (in part because it is smaller and younger) and there is a sense that decisions made today will determine how everybody will write Rust code tomorrow. Combine that with efforts to encourage an inclusive discussion and you get a lot of disagreement visible in discussions, especially concerning aspects that are prone to bikeshedding.
- kibwen 7y ago
  > In particular the switch to .await syntax happened just couple weeks before it was finally stabilized The syntax was introduced in May, while the feature was stabilized in November.
  - lightgreen 7y ago
    The final decision was made on 23rd of May, two weeks after new syntax was proposed and not even implemented yet. https://boats.gitlab.io/blog/post/await-decision/ https://boats.gitlab.io/blog/post/await-decision/
    - kibwen 7y ago
      The syntax had been proposed long before then; I (along with others) had been advocating for it the prior year. The May 6 blog post was merely the point at which the blog post author relented to the rest of the lang team to bring it up for a vote. As for your second sentence, RFCs are almost always accepted before they are implemented. There is an entirely separate round of review and approval before an accepted RFC can become a stable feature of the language.
      - lightgreen 7y ago
        > As for your second sentence, RFCs are almost always accepted before they are implemented. That's fine when * RFCs are not controversial * RFCs does not change much before stabilisation > The syntax had been proposed long before then Let me rephrase it this way. It was only a couple of weeks when syntax became available in nightly before the final decision was made.