6 ms·

Please PLEASE enough with the character assassination of the Elm guy. He wants to run his own project his own way. There's a small but dedicated residue of pe

Please PLEASE enough with the character assassination of the Elm guy. He wants to run his own project his own way. There's a small but dedicated residue of people who just can't stand being told "no" and go around crapping on the kid whenever they get a chance. I get it. You don't like Evan's project management style. Move on already. - - - - The fact of the matter is that he's a person who took his thesis, made it into a product, and got traction in the real world. People have used Elm to make things. Things that go. How many of us can say the same? And that's before you get to all the fascinating and as yet still-too-obscure things that the OP talks about. Things that are in part a little more widely known and understood thanks to Elm project.

_svoh 3y ago
Eh, it doesn't seem like character assassination. Dude chose his management style. That makes his project unfit for purpose for certain people. Those people are allowed to make that determination and state as such. I remember when the Elm team first decided to lock down the Elm compiler, so that only the team in charge had special privileged access to modify it. I thought, "wow, this looks like a bunch of people who don't want to collaborate, who want to take their ball and tell others how to play with it, really putting the 'dictator' in BDFL." and you know what? that's fine. I don't harbor anything against them as people. But that left a permanently bad taste in my mouth and I'm unlikely to ever trust that group or a project they're managing.
- carapace 3y ago
  FWIW my comment was along the lines of allergic reaction. I'm not an Elm fanatic, I'm just sick of seeing people snipe on the dude. You're entitled to your opinion, of course, and you articulated it well. But again I see it as another example of someone not liking being told "no", no?
  - ObscureScience 3y ago
    My understanding of this is that he managed to hype the language with certain killer features. A lot of people were enthusiastic and invested alot of time in learning and building in it. Evan than "suddenly" said they wanted to take the language in another direction and dropped some of the core features and pricipals that drew people in. While perhaps a mischaracterization, it comes a cross as a kind of "bait and switch" or at least undependable.
  - _svoh 3y ago
    That's really reductive and biased against us, the potential user base of Elm that decided not to engage. Why is it that we don't like being told "no," as opposed to the Elm leadership and Elm community not liking being told "this isn't a 100% solution for me so I'd like to modify it"? Obviously Elm is his passion project, that's fine. But nobody who locks down their compiler on a supposedly "open source" project can actually seriously expect others to engage with that in good faith. Furthermore, the absolute state of just trying to modify Elm to be more fit for purpose is horrendous. Every time I see a parallel implementation or a fork, the author has to bend over backward with platitudes to placate the Elm masses and ensure them that this project isn't trying to "split the community," which is a nonsense idea to start with imo. It feels cultish, on top of a project that is actively hostile to people who want to use it any way other than how the BDFL has mandated its usage. If you want to say the problem is with the users, that's fine, but that's exactly the attitude keeping me from ever engaging. I personally think the problem is with the people who want such fine control over their technology and community, as opposed to understanding that they can really only shepherd their implementation. That's about as far as their reach rightfully extends. EDIT: also, the fact that they aggressively lock down their compiler and have such hostility to anyone working in parallel is imo the definition of "holding it back"
    - carapace 3y ago
      > That's really reductive and biased against us, the potential user base of Elm that decided not to engage. My complaint isn't that you or anyone doesn't engage with Elm, that's your prerogative, of course. My problem is that a small segment of people do engage with it whenever it comes up to smear the project in general or Evan in particular for nothing worse than wanting to run his own project his own way. He's not an ogre? I mean here he is, look, he semms nice enough to me? "The Economics of Programming Languages" by Evan Czaplicki (Strange Loop 2023) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ3w_jec1v8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ3w_jec1v8
      - hu3 3y ago
        As far as I've seen, there was no attack on the person. What I usually see are warnings about what happened to the project and how it is run, mostly targeted to the unaware. This is a sign of respect to people's time before they waste it on something that might disappoint them when they get to know the details.
- G4BB3R 3y ago
  Without this management style Elm would be the oppositive of what it is today (simple language, very fast compiler, efficient tree shaking, no runtime exceptions) wanting to add at all costs Haskell features and JS direct sync interop.
  - _svoh 3y ago
    I simply don't think locking down the compiler so only blessed Elm devs can modify internals was necessary. I don't think the flack given to people forking the repo was necessary. Say no to pull requests, fine. Don't try to control the technology.
  - hajile 3y ago
    Because of that management style, it has been bitrotting for FOUR YEARS and has even gotten forked by a couple people involved so at least some progress could continue.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  From outside, with no knowledge of this "ELM Controversy", this is all very confusing. I love the ELM Architecture. Why is there a problem if it is implemented in another language? I'd think any functional language could implement the ELM Architecture, and thus be 'native', or more integrated into that particular languages ecosystem, and this would offer benefits beyond trying to integrate ELM into each individual ecosystem. And doing this re-implementation, would in no way be a comment on the ELM founder. Also, Doesn't Linus say "NO", quite a bit with Linux? Why jump on the ELM guy for doing same thing.
  - threatofrain 3y ago
    The link is that Elmish is a competitor of Elm, and that the creator of Elm is a factor to the evolution of Elm. Leadership is a big deal in open source and is the sole differentiator behind the late iojs and OpenTofu. The matter of leadership is especially weighty for niche or emerging ecosystems like Clojure, Rust, or SolidJS.
  - _svoh 3y ago
    When Linus says no, he rejects features and pull requests. That's fine. That's responsibly shepherding your implementation. That's not what Elm does. They lock down the compiler so only Elm devs can modify internals, which would be equivalent to Linus trying to prevent people from modifying the kernel. They really don't like people forking their repo, which would be equivalent to Linus getting mad at people making derivative kernels (because it would "split the community.") It's not just a matter of saying "no," it's trying to control what devs do to an UNREASONABLE degree.
wavemode 3y ago
"Character assassination" ...? Not sure where the comment said anything about the project owner as a person. He is free to manage his project in whatever way he sees fit. And the public is free to criticize that management.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  People criticizing the project management style are free to do so. But other members of the discussion are free to criticize that criticism.
  - threatofrain 3y ago
    But the trail never ended at "one ought not critique my critique", so who are you responding to? If anything, saying that something is character assassination is a statement on what's off-limits for debate.
  - wavemode 3y ago
    Never said that they weren't. I agree with you that they are also free. But that doesn't change the fact that calling it "character assassination" is hyperbolic.
threatofrain 3y ago
We should be open & honest in our discussions about whether we genuinely recommend a platform or project to others, including the details which underlies our thoughts. As I go through rewrites and greenfield projects and so forth, I begin to realize that for any particular technology you are not simply having a relationship with a static list of pros and cons, but you're also having a living relationship with the team behind the work. In other words, a bet on TypeScript is also a bet on the TypeScript team, and in my experience the TS team is very fast at their work. This makes me more forgiving of bugs. Similarly, a bet on Terraform is also a bet on Hashicorp. Here we have someone recommending a choice of F# over Elm because betting on the leadership is allegedly not good. This is not character assassination. The commentator is not criticizing Evan on irrelevant private affairs and by extension saying that you shouldn't use Elm. Evan has created a company and is advocating for his product; he is a public figure and is being criticized on the grounds of project management.
- G4BB3R 3y ago
  This is not only about leadership style, but also founding. I don't know the current TS team, but I know its dozens of full time workers backed by microsoft, not only core devs, but community organizers, evangelists, etc. There is no comparison to an independent project. Evan recently gave a talk about it on strange loop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ3w_jec1v8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ3w_jec1v8
SantalBlush 3y ago
Totally agree. Even the mention of Elmish, which has nothing to do with the creator of Elm, is derailed into yet another discussion of why some people hate the creator of Elm. It is the deadest of beaten horses on HN.
DarkNova6 3y ago
He's absolutely entitled in running his project his own way. As such, it is obvious that adoption outside of his own circle is to remain minimal. I would love Elm to be in a position where I could advocate for it at work (aside from it being a "neat hobby"). However, the simple fact is that the way Elm is run has lead to disillusionment among advocates of the first hour. And there is nothing to indicate that this will change. And if the guy has inspired a new generation to create something to his own achievement, kudos to him. As far as I'm concerned Elm is not the enemy, JavaScript is the enemy.
catlover76 3y ago
It's not "character assassination" to criticize someone.
- carapace 3y ago
  No, it's not. But making the same criticism over and over again every time the subject comes up even tangentially is.

_svoh 3y ago

Eh, it doesn't seem like character assassination. Dude chose his management style. That makes his project unfit for purpose for certain people. Those people are allowed to make that determination and state as such. I remember when the Elm team first decided to lock down the Elm compiler, so that only the team in charge had special privileged access to modify it. I thought, "wow, this looks like a bunch of people who don't want to collaborate, who want to take their ball and tell others how to play with it, really putting the 'dictator' in BDFL." and you know what? that's fine. I don't harbor anything against them as people. But that left a permanently bad taste in my mouth and I'm unlikely to ever trust that group or a project they're managing.

carapace 3y ago
FWIW my comment was along the lines of allergic reaction. I'm not an Elm fanatic, I'm just sick of seeing people snipe on the dude. You're entitled to your opinion, of course, and you articulated it well. But again I see it as another example of someone not liking being told "no", no?
- ObscureScience 3y ago
  My understanding of this is that he managed to hype the language with certain killer features. A lot of people were enthusiastic and invested alot of time in learning and building in it. Evan than "suddenly" said they wanted to take the language in another direction and dropped some of the core features and pricipals that drew people in. While perhaps a mischaracterization, it comes a cross as a kind of "bait and switch" or at least undependable.
- _svoh 3y ago
  That's really reductive and biased against us, the potential user base of Elm that decided not to engage. Why is it that we don't like being told "no," as opposed to the Elm leadership and Elm community not liking being told "this isn't a 100% solution for me so I'd like to modify it"? Obviously Elm is his passion project, that's fine. But nobody who locks down their compiler on a supposedly "open source" project can actually seriously expect others to engage with that in good faith. Furthermore, the absolute state of just trying to modify Elm to be more fit for purpose is horrendous. Every time I see a parallel implementation or a fork, the author has to bend over backward with platitudes to placate the Elm masses and ensure them that this project isn't trying to "split the community," which is a nonsense idea to start with imo. It feels cultish, on top of a project that is actively hostile to people who want to use it any way other than how the BDFL has mandated its usage. If you want to say the problem is with the users, that's fine, but that's exactly the attitude keeping me from ever engaging. I personally think the problem is with the people who want such fine control over their technology and community, as opposed to understanding that they can really only shepherd their implementation. That's about as far as their reach rightfully extends. EDIT: also, the fact that they aggressively lock down their compiler and have such hostility to anyone working in parallel is imo the definition of "holding it back"
  - carapace 3y ago
    > That's really reductive and biased against us, the potential user base of Elm that decided not to engage. My complaint isn't that you or anyone doesn't engage with Elm, that's your prerogative, of course. My problem is that a small segment of people do engage with it whenever it comes up to smear the project in general or Evan in particular for nothing worse than wanting to run his own project his own way. He's not an ogre? I mean here he is, look, he semms nice enough to me? "The Economics of Programming Languages" by Evan Czaplicki (Strange Loop 2023) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ3w_jec1v8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ3w_jec1v8
    - hu3 3y ago
      As far as I've seen, there was no attack on the person. What I usually see are warnings about what happened to the project and how it is run, mostly targeted to the unaware. This is a sign of respect to people's time before they waste it on something that might disappoint them when they get to know the details.
G4BB3R 3y ago
Without this management style Elm would be the oppositive of what it is today (simple language, very fast compiler, efficient tree shaking, no runtime exceptions) wanting to add at all costs Haskell features and JS direct sync interop.
- _svoh 3y ago
  I simply don't think locking down the compiler so only blessed Elm devs can modify internals was necessary. I don't think the flack given to people forking the repo was necessary. Say no to pull requests, fine. Don't try to control the technology.
- hajile 3y ago
  Because of that management style, it has been bitrotting for FOUR YEARS and has even gotten forked by a couple people involved so at least some progress could continue.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
From outside, with no knowledge of this "ELM Controversy", this is all very confusing. I love the ELM Architecture. Why is there a problem if it is implemented in another language? I'd think any functional language could implement the ELM Architecture, and thus be 'native', or more integrated into that particular languages ecosystem, and this would offer benefits beyond trying to integrate ELM into each individual ecosystem. And doing this re-implementation, would in no way be a comment on the ELM founder. Also, Doesn't Linus say "NO", quite a bit with Linux? Why jump on the ELM guy for doing same thing.
- threatofrain 3y ago
  The link is that Elmish is a competitor of Elm, and that the creator of Elm is a factor to the evolution of Elm. Leadership is a big deal in open source and is the sole differentiator behind the late iojs and OpenTofu. The matter of leadership is especially weighty for niche or emerging ecosystems like Clojure, Rust, or SolidJS.
- _svoh 3y ago
  When Linus says no, he rejects features and pull requests. That's fine. That's responsibly shepherding your implementation. That's not what Elm does. They lock down the compiler so only Elm devs can modify internals, which would be equivalent to Linus trying to prevent people from modifying the kernel. They really don't like people forking their repo, which would be equivalent to Linus getting mad at people making derivative kernels (because it would "split the community.") It's not just a matter of saying "no," it's trying to control what devs do to an UNREASONABLE degree.

wavemode 3y ago

"Character assassination" ...? Not sure where the comment said anything about the project owner as a person. He is free to manage his project in whatever way he sees fit. And the public is free to criticize that management.

bee_rider 3y ago
People criticizing the project management style are free to do so. But other members of the discussion are free to criticize that criticism.
- threatofrain 3y ago
  But the trail never ended at "one ought not critique my critique", so who are you responding to? If anything, saying that something is character assassination is a statement on what's off-limits for debate.
- wavemode 3y ago
  Never said that they weren't. I agree with you that they are also free. But that doesn't change the fact that calling it "character assassination" is hyperbolic.

threatofrain 3y ago

We should be open & honest in our discussions about whether we genuinely recommend a platform or project to others, including the details which underlies our thoughts. As I go through rewrites and greenfield projects and so forth, I begin to realize that for any particular technology you are not simply having a relationship with a static list of pros and cons, but you're also having a living relationship with the team behind the work. In other words, a bet on TypeScript is also a bet on the TypeScript team, and in my experience the TS team is very fast at their work. This makes me more forgiving of bugs. Similarly, a bet on Terraform is also a bet on Hashicorp. Here we have someone recommending a choice of F# over Elm because betting on the leadership is allegedly not good. This is not character assassination. The commentator is not criticizing Evan on irrelevant private affairs and by extension saying that you shouldn't use Elm. Evan has created a company and is advocating for his product; he is a public figure and is being criticized on the grounds of project management.

G4BB3R 3y ago
This is not only about leadership style, but also founding. I don't know the current TS team, but I know its dozens of full time workers backed by microsoft, not only core devs, but community organizers, evangelists, etc. There is no comparison to an independent project. Evan recently gave a talk about it on strange loop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ3w_jec1v8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ3w_jec1v8

SantalBlush 3y ago

Totally agree. Even the mention of Elmish, which has nothing to do with the creator of Elm, is derailed into yet another discussion of why some people hate the creator of Elm. It is the deadest of beaten horses on HN.

DarkNova6 3y ago

He's absolutely entitled in running his project his own way. As such, it is obvious that adoption outside of his own circle is to remain minimal. I would love Elm to be in a position where I could advocate for it at work (aside from it being a "neat hobby"). However, the simple fact is that the way Elm is run has lead to disillusionment among advocates of the first hour. And there is nothing to indicate that this will change. And if the guy has inspired a new generation to create something to his own achievement, kudos to him. As far as I'm concerned Elm is not the enemy, JavaScript is the enemy.

catlover76 3y ago

It's not "character assassination" to criticize someone.

carapace 3y ago
No, it's not. But making the same criticism over and over again every time the subject comes up even tangentially is.