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> Though you may just be asking somewhat rhetorically to probe for a response from a supporter No, I was genuinely asking the question directly at the creator

> Though you may just be asking somewhat rhetorically to probe for a response from a supporter No, I was genuinely asking the question directly at the creator of the project, to understand their view of the contention they seem to be at the receiving end of. I know the history of the project, but it seems to me like most languages in their pre 1.0 make claims about what they would like the language to be, not what it currently is, but they still don't receive their criticism in such manner. Or maybe I'm just reading into it too much. Hence the question :)

yellowapple 4y ago
> most languages in their pre 1.0 make claims about what they would like the language to be, not what it currently is, but they still don't receive their criticism in such manner That's because those languages make those claims in future-tense rather than past tense; they explicitly state them as goals, rather than presenting them as if they're already implemented. For example, I wrote a tiny scripting language for Erlang/OTP apps called OTPCL, and I make it clear in the README which features are actually implemented (like the parser and interpreter) v. which ones are in progress (like the standard library) v. which ones haven't been started at all yet (like the compiler). Same deal with up-and-coming languages closer to V's use case, like Zig; there's a clear distinction between those three levels of completeness. V did not make that distinction originally; a large number of its radically ambitious goals were presented on the website as if they were already implemented, only to later be revealed to be "WIP" at best. A lot of people - including, at one point, Zig's creator - assumed malice here, figuring the disparity between the website v. the actual releases to be an attempt to swindle Patreon backers (I can't read the mind of V's author, but I would guess that it was more of a language/communication thing than anything outright malicious). In any case, that left a pretty negative first impression for a lot of folks, myself included - and while it seems V is making some progress, it's hard to get that bad taste out of my mouth and consider even trying it out when languages like Zig and Odin and Nim and Crystal seem to be a lot more transparent and realistic from the outset.

yellowapple 4y ago

> most languages in their pre 1.0 make claims about what they would like the language to be, not what it currently is, but they still don't receive their criticism in such manner That's because those languages make those claims in future-tense rather than past tense; they explicitly state them as goals, rather than presenting them as if they're already implemented. For example, I wrote a tiny scripting language for Erlang/OTP apps called OTPCL, and I make it clear in the README which features are actually implemented (like the parser and interpreter) v. which ones are in progress (like the standard library) v. which ones haven't been started at all yet (like the compiler). Same deal with up-and-coming languages closer to V's use case, like Zig; there's a clear distinction between those three levels of completeness. V did not make that distinction originally; a large number of its radically ambitious goals were presented on the website as if they were already implemented, only to later be revealed to be "WIP" at best. A lot of people - including, at one point, Zig's creator - assumed malice here, figuring the disparity between the website v. the actual releases to be an attempt to swindle Patreon backers (I can't read the mind of V's author, but I would guess that it was more of a language/communication thing than anything outright malicious). In any case, that left a pretty negative first impression for a lot of folks, myself included - and while it seems V is making some progress, it's hard to get that bad taste out of my mouth and consider even trying it out when languages like Zig and Odin and Nim and Crystal seem to be a lot more transparent and realistic from the outset.