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> First and foremost, their statement about community on their homepage spoke to me This is the part of the excitement around Gleam that gives me pause. When t

> First and foremost, their statement about community on their homepage spoke to me This is the part of the excitement around Gleam that gives me pause. When the biggest draw is the heavily-moderated community [0], it seems almost more a political project than it does a technical one. That's not a bad thing in and of itself—goodness knows we need less toxicity in the world—but I get very nervous around a technical project that has gotten very comfortable with silencing dissent and enforcing "good vibes". I think of dang's bio quote: > Conflict is essential to human life, whether between different aspects of oneself, between oneself and the environment, between different individuals or between different groups. It follows that the aim of healthy living is not the direct elimination of conflict, which is possible only by forcible suppression of one or other of its antagonistic components, but the toleration of it—the capacity to bear the tensions of doubt and of unsatisfied need and the willingness to hold judgement in suspense until finer and finer solutions can be discovered which integrate more and more the claims of both sides. It is the psychologist's job to make possible the acceptance of such an idea so that the richness of the varieties of experience, whether within the unit of the single personality or in the wider unit of the group, can come to expression. [1] Marion Milner, 'The Toleration of Conflict', Occupational Psychology, 17, 1, January 1943 [0] The lead dev has been known to tell people off in DMs for reacting with negative emoji to their discord comments (and remove the negative reactions with admin powers!): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41413735 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41413735 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dang https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dang

okkdev 2y ago
Not tolerating intolerance shouldn't be political.
- lolinder 2y ago
  As many are fond of saying these days, everything is political, whether it tries to or not. But what makes me say this is a political project more than a technical one is that consistently, as in TFA, the thing people say draws them to Gleam is this statement on the home page. And again: lpil has explicitly said that they're not stopping with intolerance, they enforce "good vibes". That's what I'm worried about on a practical level: I don't believe you can build a healthy technical community that solves real problems on that foundation. I very well might be wrong, and I believe that that's the point of this political experiment. But I also think it's important to emphasize that that's what this is: a political experiment, not just a programming language.
  - okkdev 2y ago
    I really think you read too much into this. It's a programming language by people who don't want to deal with shitty people. There's more than enough healthy language design discussion going on if you are worried about that.
- DemocracyFTW2 2y ago
  This is an automated message. Your SocialScore has been downgraded 1.75% for using two negations in a single sentence. Please be more positive in the future. Thank you.
- surgical_fire 2y ago
  Pending definitions of intolerance.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
brink 2y ago
Isn't it funny that people who constantly feel the need to tell the world how kind they are, actually aren't that kind?
- laurent_du 2y ago
  It stops being funny when you realize the root cause of this posturing is mental health issues. These people are unwell.
garyrob 2y ago
Just gotta say that's an excellent quote from dang, who I never heard of before.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Hah, fair enough. Proper citation added.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
hellcow 2y ago
I'm more interested in the language after hearing this. There's plenty of negativity in the world, I don't need more of it in a niche programmer forum of enthusiasts. It reminds me of MINASWAN from Ruby.
- lolinder 2y ago
  MINASWAN is a cultural thing, not a code of conduct. It's not enforced by Matz from on high in such heavy-handed ways, it's just the way that the Ruby community rolls. That said, if this interests you, that's great! Like I said, there's nothing wrong with a project that is primarily political in nature. I'm just highly skeptical that such a project can achieve good technical outcomes in the long run once the admins get accustomed to suppressing negative reactions under a vague "good vibes" policy. I could be wrong, and that's exactly what political projects are often designed to do: to prove a political point. But if you're not interested in a political project and are instead looking for a strongly typed BEAM language, you might be better off just waiting for Elixir to finish its types.
beepbooptheory 2y ago
I guess I just don't understand how you want to draw the line from the need for tolerance in itself to the necessary prescription that quiescence is the only way to be if you want to get things done. Is not taking some kind of stand precisely integrating and accepting conflict? Like is anything purely technical? I dont think so, and the most insidious politics are the ones that are left unspoken but allowed to direct the endeavor at hand. To dream of or push for something purely "technical" or "apolitical" is simply to be guilty of the same thing your quote is getting at, but from the other direction. Instead of squashing dissent, you simply poof it out existence, you make it taboo to even talk about. How does that then become tolerance? How does it operate necessarily to help us? It is in fact no less an imposition, and is no less a political operation in the communities where this kind of view operates.
- lolinder 2y ago
  > to draw the line from the need for tolerance in itself to the necessary prescription that quiescence is the only way to be if you want to get things done I'm not talking about tolerance, I'm talking about the lead dev actively shutting down negative reactions to their comments and justifying it under the banner of "good vibes". If the lead dev can't deal gracefully with criticism, that's going to be a problem. Too many people in this thread are treating criticism of this pattern of silencing dissent for not "vibing" right as though the critic is implicitly endorsing letting Nazis roam free. There's a middle ground between "good vibes only" and "fascists welcome" that lpil has explicitly said he's not interested in pursuing.
  - beepbooptheory 2y ago
    Its totally fine and reasonable if this is just about how this particular person carries themselves, about them being a bad admin or whatever! It just then feels a little at odds with sweeping, principled profundity of the initial comment. Like why invoke the quote and all that at first if you're not actually standing by it now?
    - lolinder 2y ago

okkdev 2y ago

Not tolerating intolerance shouldn't be political.

lolinder 2y ago
As many are fond of saying these days, everything is political, whether it tries to or not. But what makes me say this is a political project more than a technical one is that consistently, as in TFA, the thing people say draws them to Gleam is this statement on the home page. And again: lpil has explicitly said that they're not stopping with intolerance, they enforce "good vibes". That's what I'm worried about on a practical level: I don't believe you can build a healthy technical community that solves real problems on that foundation. I very well might be wrong, and I believe that that's the point of this political experiment. But I also think it's important to emphasize that that's what this is: a political experiment, not just a programming language.
- okkdev 2y ago
  I really think you read too much into this. It's a programming language by people who don't want to deal with shitty people. There's more than enough healthy language design discussion going on if you are worried about that.
DemocracyFTW2 2y ago
This is an automated message. Your SocialScore has been downgraded 1.75% for using two negations in a single sentence. Please be more positive in the future. Thank you.
surgical_fire 2y ago
Pending definitions of intolerance.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

brink 2y ago

Isn't it funny that people who constantly feel the need to tell the world how kind they are, actually aren't that kind?

laurent_du 2y ago
It stops being funny when you realize the root cause of this posturing is mental health issues. These people are unwell.

garyrob 2y ago

Just gotta say that's an excellent quote from dang, who I never heard of before.

lolinder 2y ago
Hah, fair enough. Proper citation added.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

hellcow 2y ago

I'm more interested in the language after hearing this. There's plenty of negativity in the world, I don't need more of it in a niche programmer forum of enthusiasts. It reminds me of MINASWAN from Ruby.

lolinder 2y ago
MINASWAN is a cultural thing, not a code of conduct. It's not enforced by Matz from on high in such heavy-handed ways, it's just the way that the Ruby community rolls. That said, if this interests you, that's great! Like I said, there's nothing wrong with a project that is primarily political in nature. I'm just highly skeptical that such a project can achieve good technical outcomes in the long run once the admins get accustomed to suppressing negative reactions under a vague "good vibes" policy. I could be wrong, and that's exactly what political projects are often designed to do: to prove a political point. But if you're not interested in a political project and are instead looking for a strongly typed BEAM language, you might be better off just waiting for Elixir to finish its types.

beepbooptheory 2y ago

I guess I just don't understand how you want to draw the line from the need for tolerance in itself to the necessary prescription that quiescence is the only way to be if you want to get things done. Is not taking some kind of stand precisely integrating and accepting conflict? Like is anything purely technical? I dont think so, and the most insidious politics are the ones that are left unspoken but allowed to direct the endeavor at hand. To dream of or push for something purely "technical" or "apolitical" is simply to be guilty of the same thing your quote is getting at, but from the other direction. Instead of squashing dissent, you simply poof it out existence, you make it taboo to even talk about. How does that then become tolerance? How does it operate necessarily to help us? It is in fact no less an imposition, and is no less a political operation in the communities where this kind of view operates.

lolinder 2y ago
> to draw the line from the need for tolerance in itself to the necessary prescription that quiescence is the only way to be if you want to get things done I'm not talking about tolerance, I'm talking about the lead dev actively shutting down negative reactions to their comments and justifying it under the banner of "good vibes". If the lead dev can't deal gracefully with criticism, that's going to be a problem. Too many people in this thread are treating criticism of this pattern of silencing dissent for not "vibing" right as though the critic is implicitly endorsing letting Nazis roam free. There's a middle ground between "good vibes only" and "fascists welcome" that lpil has explicitly said he's not interested in pursuing.
- beepbooptheory 2y ago
  Its totally fine and reasonable if this is just about how this particular person carries themselves, about them being a bad admin or whatever! It just then feels a little at odds with sweeping, principled profundity of the initial comment. Like why invoke the quote and all that at first if you're not actually standing by it now?
  - lolinder 2y ago