Johan Vromans writes:
: On Mon, Jul 31, 2000 at 09:50:11PM -0600, Nathan Torkington wrote:
: > So Larry is doing most of the evaluation for us. He's the one who
: > gave us the good things in the Perl language we have now. He'll be
: > the one vetoing the ridiculous ideas.
:
: Larry said: "Perl5 was my rewrite of Perl, Perl6 will be the community's
: rewrite of Perl." I think it is not realistic to keep shooting around,
: trusting Larry to prevent anyone from getting hurt. We have our own
: responsibilities as well.
Yes, I don't mind other people shooting down the bad ideas, as long as
they do it politely, and with good reasoning to back it up. It's the
mindless sniping that is destructive, particularly when we're still
brainstorming. People need to have a safe forum for bringing up
half-baked ideas, even if we're also trying to create a more official
RFC mechanism.
On the flip side, we need to be Very Careful not to get our egos
irrevocably tied to our proposals. I have a particular distaste for
the sort of argument that goes, "If I can't have it my way, I'm going
to take all my marbles and go home." That's not an argument--that's
nuclear blackmail. I'm the only one who's allowed to make that sort
argument, and you'll never hear me making it.
Unless, of course, you count Rule 1 as a form of it. :-)
But you'll notice I almost never invoke Rule 1. I am, in fact, rather
more fond of Rule 2. I think everyone should be allowed to change
their mind occasionally.
Larry
