He was a child and probably of a lower (aspirational) class that the guy who slapped him. Children and working-class people having rights is a surprisingly recent concept.
Then offer specifics that contradict mine? It should be easy if all I'm doing is being a contrarian. There are at least a few comments in reply to this post that have echoed my experiences regarding unpleasant interactions with Nim's leadership and community.
I'd like nothing more than for Nim to succeed as a modern systems programming language. Unfortunately, giant egos and personalities constantly get in the way of that goal. There's certainly something holding Nim back from achieving widespread adoption, and if you want to suggest it's me and some sort of concerted effort to toss shade at the language and its evangelists, then that is your perrogative. It certainly isn't moving the language forward.
Actually, that’s not far from the truth. The reasons are:
Lack of contribution. If someone isn’t doing actual programming work, doesn’t have time management to maintain libraries, or isn’t contributing successful applications, it’s hard to take constant criticism seriously.
Only showing up to complain. Some people disappear for months and then reappear only to complain about design decisions, like "Why were multimethods removed in v3?" or "Why isn’t the pragma syntax like Python’s?" That tends to lead to the assumption that the language is "someone’s toy" just because features change or it’s not a drop-in Python replacement.
Focusing on gossip instead of technical merit. Complaining that a moderator was unfriendly is missing the point. Moderators change over time. The question should be whether the language and the ecosystem are valuable to you, not whether you personally get along with every individual on the forum.
Are you suggesting that the reason Nim isn't successful is everyone else's fault, and that the Nim development team and community aren't responsible for its trajectory?
I'm sorry, but not many people are going to want to use a programming language when they're mocked or insulted for simply asking questions. Nor are many people going to want to use a language where the core development team focuses on shiny new things over fixing and documenting what already exists.
Those are the main criticisms I've lobbed at Nim, and I think both are completely fair.
Actually, now that I remember you, you’re the same guy from r/nim, right? How much time have you spent repeating the same talking points? You’ve already made around 15% of the comments in this thread, calling yourself “qualified to answer”, etc. Maybe take a step back.
You keep accusing others of having "large egos", but that kind of criticism says more about you than anyone else, it comes off as projection. And honestly, multiple people have already tried engaging with you in good faith. When someone is this locked into their narrative, there’s just no productive conversation left to have.
> Actually, now that I remember you, you’re the same guy from r/nim, right?
No, actually, I'm not. I don't use reddit nor have I ever posted anything in r/nim.
> How much time have you spent repeating the same talking points?
Considering I haven't posted about Nim on HN or any other forum in at least a couple of years, not much.
> You’ve already made around 15% of the comments in this thread, calling yourself “qualified to answer”, etc.
Right, because you and others have replied to the TWO comments I left. Typically when people reply to comments, the commenter replies back. I feel qualified to talk about Nim because I have written tens of thousands of loc in Nim, and have followed the project for over a decade.
> You keep accusing others of having "large egos", but that kind of criticism says more about you than anyone else, it comes off as projection. And honestly, multiple people have already tried engaging with you in good faith. When someone is this locked into their narrative, there’s just no productive conversation left to have.
I said members of the moderation team / "leaders" in the community had large egos. I made that comment once.
I don't use Github, and no, sorry, I will not spend time digging up old posts for you on Nim's buggy forums. You're another example of a hostile and abrasive member of the Nim community apparently. There are other folks in this thread that have echoed similar sentiments to mine, in their replies, and also apparently at least one person on reddit. I hope you have a nice day.
I guess accusing someone of being someone they are not, then accusing them of lying, then demanding they dig up old forum posts for you to prove a point that other individuals have echoed, isn't considered being hostile or abrasive to you?
By all means, believe whatever you want regarding the health of the Nim community. Just don't expect me to share your sentiments.
> Araq will state his personal & honest opinions, which may come off as abrasive or "un-welcoming" in your opinion. I don't agree with everything he says but that's OK.
Nope. This is a sop, an equivalent to the non-apology "I'm sorry you took what I said so badly".
Aggression masquerading as "honesty" has no place in any organisation that wants to be taken seriously.
It's most certainly not "OK" when Andreas' personal opinions are expressed in ad-hominem attacks.
Nim unfortunately has a toxic Dictator at the top, and his subordinates defend his behaviours. While this continues nobody should take Nim seriously.
> Nim unfortunately has a toxic Dictator at the top
Araq has opinions that he defends, but you can and absolutely should try to sway or change them. I see this all the time on Discord and Forum. And I see people win over just as much as them losing.
I don't have a strong opinion if this is healthy or not, but it's probably why I would be a bad BDFL =). All in all, I don't think dictatorship is a right word here.
My conversation with Andreas on a public forum featured ad-hominem attacks from Andreas which continued in a private email exchange between us. The man is closed-minded and had zero interest in discussion beyond aggressive insults. You're welcome to contact me privately if you'd like to read the exchange.
>Nim unfortunately has a toxic Dictator at the top, and his subordinates defend his behaviours. While this continues nobody should take Nim seriously.
I can mention just exactly the same pattern with one widespreaded OS that anyone is taking seriously.
And I know one very popular and often mentioned systems programming language with "community" driven design process with inclusive and stuff which is in some kind of stagnation without BDFL (async fragmented ecosystem without C++ burden of 40 years of legacy).
Why do you think that "welcoming" is a must for successful IT projeсt?
Do you think aggression is a must for any successful project? Or can you entertain the possibility that projects might progress even further and faster without it?
You point to Linux but assume that Linus' infamous foul behaviour has been beneficial. This is a very basic confusion of correlation and causation.
You suggest that being "welcoming" is antithetical to "success" without defining "success".
Unfortunately this has been my experience. Andreas was extremely abrasive towards me personally, and views he expressed to me regarding climate change were bizarre and aggressive. His behaviour led me to ditch Nim and explore Go instead, and I couldn't be happier. Sadly Nim is a permanent no-go for me.
It's not meant to mimic tinnitus, it's intended to help you cope with tinnitus. Tweak the settings until you find an arrangement that helps you. Of course, there are no guarantees. Personally, I like it.
I don't think it is a long term solution. More like training wheels. Ideally the engineers learn to use AI to produce better code the first time. You just have a quality gate.
Edit: Do I advocate for this? 1000%. This isn't crypto burning electricity to make a ledger. This objectively will make the life of the craftsmanship focused engineer easier. Sloppy execution oriented engineers are not a new phenomenon, just magnified with the fire hose that an agentic AI can be.
The environmental cost of AI is mostly in training afaik. The inference energy cost is similar to the google searches and reddit etc loads you might do during handwritten dev last I checked. This might be completely wrong though
I hear this argument a lot, but it doesn’t hold water for me. Obviously the use of the AI is the thing that makes it worthwhile to do the training, so you obviously need to amortize the training cost over the inference. I don’t know whether or not doing so makes the environmental cost substantially higher, though.
That feels like a false dichotomy. There are many more attitudes then only rudeness and obsequiousness.
That said, FOSS has a big problem with maintainer burn-out. It seems that projects like SQLite demonstrate more sustainable models, such as source-available and a closed group of maintainers who are exposed to limited demands from users.
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