They overpromised, which is quite frowned upon in foss circles where there's usually no incentive to do that. Personally, I'm quite happy that any attempts to normalize a culture of lying gets a strong reaction.
The response by the creator and others against the critics was also frowned upon. I'm interested in how this language will go, but those actions a year or so ago still leave a bad taste.
And yet, all that would be nothing but temporary noise if the resulting artifact that delivers gets made. I'm more of a dynamic tech guy but I see this language as something that needs to exist.
If that article hasn't been changed since the publication, the strongest statement is "as it stands I recommend against using it for anything" AFIAK, and it is far from saying "it must die". She even gave many suggestions for improvement, some of which are shared with mine. I think you are reading too much from those criticisms.
I failed to locate such a comment. And even if there was one and got removed later, the last known position is that she regret to write an article that can be perceived as toxic, no matter her intent [1].
Thank you for the explicit pointer (I searched for "die" already, but it seems that "dies" was not stemmed). And yet it is not same to "V should die"; it is rather V "should be ignored until it dies into obscurity". It is no different from "do not feed the trolls"---if V fails to prove to be something viable there would be no reason to make comments at all. And that comment predates her last position anyway, so I still think you are reading too much.
Come on. She was already aware that it is not literally ("kind of") a scam, but pointing out that there is a parallel ("if you sell someone the moon and give them a block of cheese", I believe advertisements were not yet fulfilled in 2021). If she was meant to mercilessly bash V why did she rather mention "there are good ideas there" and give suggestions for improvement?
That is your interpretation of what is being said, where "prove to be something viable" is being added, and graciously giving the benefit of the doubt to the person who wrote the statement.
I took it, as possibly many others, as "ignore V until it dies". Thus, "V should die", would also be near enough to the intent, malice, and vitriol be conveyed. If someone said something similar to me or about something I created, "Ignore X until it dies", would not interpret it as anything other than ill intent.
Of course if she only said that your interpretation is more likely. But she first stated "I hope this feedback can help make V a productive tool for programming" in 2019, and the last post in June 2020 stated that:
> I would like to see this situation result in a net improvement for everyone involved. V is an interesting take on a stagnant field of computer science, but I cannot continue to comment on this language or give it any of the signal boost I have given it with this series of posts.
This exactly aligns with what she said in the comment I quoted (the only addition is "[V] should be ignored", which is another way to say "no more signal boost"). You are free to disagree with my interpretation, but your interpretation doesn't seem to explain this paragraph.
---
> If someone said something similar to me or about something I created, "Ignore X until it dies", would not interpret it as anything other than ill intent.
I also have my share of people saying mean things to me (as I've said elsewhere, I also went through lots of shitposts), and I learned that I have only a finite amount of time to deal with them. Salvage what you can learn from them (positive or not), but otherwise minimize useless interactions because it is often the case that actually I was at fault, or even that no one is at fault and the human language is just so imperfect. I believe the latter was indeed the case for aforementioned reasons.
(In the case anyone wondering why I'm trying to interact this much then, I still want V to be successful and my experience suggests that no one said something like my comments so far. It is sort of a folk knowledge and many take or assume it granted, but it has to be learned and few will tell you that fact.)
In the last 15 minutes I’ve read a few blog posts and reddit threads and am saddened. It does seem there are many false or misleading claims, though there does appear to be steady progress, or at least the appearance of it.
I hope the language or another like it eventually can fill this niche. I’ve been dreaming of a similar language myself..
Ignore all the pro/con noise. git clone its repo, compile it locally and play with it. Write some code. You’ll be pleasantly surprised (at least I was). Its progress is pretty good (few tests break now and then and once in a while the self-compile breaks and I have to run make). If you know Go, it is very easy to pick up but don’t expect it to be exactly like go and it has its own idioms.
Note: I’m interested in V but not involved in V development.
A lot of the false accusations, spamming of negative links, and misinformation arguably comes from those with competing or hidden interests. It's a lot of language war antics, that got out of control.
Various competing languages use reddit as a forum, because their language didn't previously have one or their developers didn't open up discussions on GitHub. Evangelists of competing languages can be allowed to bash, flame, or troll opposing languages on various subreddits.
If they outnumber a rival language, in a place they often congregate and the mods will allow such behavior, then they can get away with typing the most outrageous or foul statements for points. It came become a bash and troll festival, and anyone that dares oppose, can get intentionally downvoted away or punished by their mods who have control.
People that are casuals or don't know what's going on behind the scenes, may see only their side. There is often no balanced discussion. Any opposing view points to the false accusations, extreme negative positions, misinformation, or wrong statements may not be allowed to be seen.
> A lot of the false accusations, spamming of negative links, and misinformation arguably comes from those with competing or hidden interests. It's a lot of language war antics, that got out of control.
Arguably? According to who? What evidence supports such a claim?
When V was first announced, the author made a lot of outlandish claims about what the language was able to do. Experienced language developers saw this immediately and pointed out correctly that the claims ranged from exaggerated and premature, to impossible based on current PL theory. Apparently the V community has decided that constructive and valid criticism from peers is an act of "war", and it's to be discounted because they are "competitors" and
"rivals" who are "salty".
Notably the criticism died down a little (from the Zig author in particular) when the Vlang devs backed off some of the more outlandish claims and correctly added "WIP" labels to them instead of implying that they were actually working and implemented. So the Vlang devs/community at the time at least recognized they were doing something wrong in how they were communicating their work; although today in this thread it seems like they are trying to back peddle.
V has the right to exist, have its supporters, and do things its own way. The creator and developers of V, from what I have seen, have responded well to actual constructive criticism. Their language has discussions opened at their GitHub, unlike those for various other languages. They even have a thread for what people don't like and want improved about the language[1], again, something many other languages don't have.
A lot of what was going on initially, was coming from obvious competitors and evangelists, to include being uncivil, inflammatory, and directly insulting. The initial "criticism" was not so much that, but false accusations of the language being a scam, vaporware, fraud, or didn't really exist. To include attacks and jealousy over donations, rising popularity, and having supporters. This was not any kind of "valid" criticism, that the creator or contributors of the language could reason about with instigators.
The "criticism" never died down, but rather V was open-sourced and established itself on GitHub. The initial series of false accusations could not stand nor could the support it was getting be stopped. So, the rhetoric and targets shifted to whatever could be found to go after on the newly released alpha version of the language and its new website. In that new mix of what was being thrown at it, there were indeed some very valid criticisms, as can be found with any new language and many sites.
Constructive and valid criticism, is not the same as insults, trolling, misinformation, rivalry, or false accusations. There is clearly a difference. It's disingenuous to pretend something from one group is the same as the other, or that the intent behind what is being done is not different.
A big reason this drama still exists on HN is your style of evangelism. You are not a good ambassador for this language, and if you care about it you should stop.
You’re not going to change my mind that the initial promises were outlandish unless you implement them (you haven’t yet in 4 years), and claiming today they weren’t (as Alex is) is literally the worst approach you could take to build trust in your language. People weren’t mad about V they were mad about the exaggerations, prevarications, shifting explanations, aggressive tone, and now gaslighting from the V author. And if you turn it back around on me yet again you’re proving my point.
Well, that's because the reason behind the criticism was never really the language. It was the attitude of its author and proponents. Sadly, this very thread proves that that attitude has not changed [1] one bit, so it's no wonder the criticisms remain.
> The initial "criticism" was not so much that, but false accusations of the language being a scam, vaporware, fraud, or didn't really exist.
Backlash is to be expected whenever extraordinary claims get made with nothing to back them up. Apparently V is supposed to be able to translate entire C & C++ projects to V and run as fast as C, but with memory freed automatically by the compiler. Now, combine such impossible claims with the initial unavailability of the source code, asking for donations, refusing to elaborate on how exactly this would work, and the fact that none of is is true even today.
That's because none of the outrageous claims are possible. They weren't possible back when V was announced either and when the programming community immediately pointed it out, the response was the same as we've seen in every thread since then - gaslighting.
It's one thing to make hopeful and starry-eyed, but misguided claims, it's another to double down on them, deny any mistakes, and play a victim.
I would appreciate, for you to not speak about the V community and V devs, which consists of many people (660 contributors currently), with various positions and attitudes, including me.
I have not spoken about anyone being a salty rival, whatever that means.
The lead developer and very vocal community members brigade HN every time V is mentioned. They form the basis of my opinion of your whole community — you maybe should send some more measured voices here if you feel they don’t represent you. The impression they give off has informed my opinion, and if you don’t like that it’s your job to change my opinion through positive interactions. Meanwhile I’ll voice my opinion as much as I like thank you very much.
The words in quotes are from what appear to be ambassadors of the V language here on HN. If you feel they don’t represent your community, maybe ask them to stop brigading instead of asking me to shut my mouth? Just another example of the V community I guess…
My job, thank God, is not to please entitled rude people on HN.
If you have some problem, you can simply address people individually, without attacking an entire community of many, that share a common interest in a programming language.
Sadly, that's not how community management and representation works, and you should know that. If the people in the V community who post here aren't representative of the V community, then maybe send community members who have better people skills.
The people you send are the people who represent all of you. Sorry if you think that's unfair, but that's the reputation you're building. That's not on me, that's on you.
Think all you want about me, I'm nobody. But it's clear that the same handful of V community members (including the lead dev) show up every single time V is mentioned. So if you feel their voices don't represent the V community, talk to them instead of telling me to (in so many words) STFU. Cause that aint happening. Because they're all I see of V.
@ModernMech, you can just address people here individually, and not refer to them as V developers or V community - that currently is already too broad and paints people that you do not know at all, with the same paint, be it bright or dark.
It is the same, as asking you to not talk about all Australians, all Chinese or all Bulgarians, when you mean the actions of specific people/individuals.
That is all I am asking for, and I think that is not difficult to understand.
What you and your community do on HN reflects on you, regardless of what anyone else does. You're earning your reputation one post at a time. I mean, several of your posts here are dead and flagged. Take a hint. Your evangelism isn't working here, it's doing the opposite of what you want.
My suggestion is to work on your C++ to V translation engine instead of posting here. Maybe you'll move it past the early stage.
> You're spamming this thread and with your anti V attacks, have a bunch of them downvoted and flagged, and are teaching me about communication...
> So rude indeed.
I count ~10 comments across three comment threads, most of which are responses. It's a bit scummy to characterize this as "spamming anti-V attacks".
I never claimed to be anything, and I have no dead or flagged comments.
But I'm an asshole. I'm very rude and blunt. That's a given. Never claimed otherwise. But I'm not the leader of a community I'm trying to build. That's you. You need to take a higher road if you want to build a positive reputation. Or you can roll around with pigs like me and get a reputation for being muddy.
The fact that you turn it back to me personally when you should be standing on the merits of your work says everything I need to know about you and your community. Change my mind.
> I never claimed to be anything, and I have no dead or flagged comments.
You just said yourself, that you are an asshole, rude and blunt, after insulting a whole community of people ... Have you thought, that maybe you should stop?
> Or you can roll around with pigs like me and get a reputation for being muddy.
I am a farmer. I live in a village in Bulgaria, and I've had to deal with actual pigs before from time to time... Pigs should know their place, and it is not, where people discuss ideas.
Think it's way more about detractors trying to push a negative narrative on the language, than it's any kind of reflection of the community, who are elsewhere.
