Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 18, 2024 15:07 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341)
In reply to: Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++ by mb
Parent article: Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

The "death threats" were in comments - second hand stuff on forums. Not strong evidence of anything. What matters: I don't think it is disputed that the ngix author found the reaction to include sufficient abusive comments that he shut down his own project. His words, from his "post mortem" are:

"You alway face with rude and hate, everyone knows better how to build software, nobody wants to do home work and read docs and think a bit and very few provide any help. ... I started to receive complaints that docs are not updated and i have to go fix my shit. Encouraging. ... You felt betrayed after you put so much effort and then to hear all this shit comments, even if you understand that that is usual internet behavior."

https://github.com/fafhrd91/actix-web-postmortem

That is authoritative text on how the author felt. And I think we were all aware of that text before we started this discussion.

Now, your counter to this is that /his/ responses to the criticisms he received were unprofessional. I have asked for an example, twice now I think, but you've not given any, other than to claim I can find it if I look. Well, from reading around forums on this, the most heinous charge I can find levelled against the author is that he called a PoC change in a comment "boring":

http://web.archive.org/web/20200116231317/https://github....

I don't think /any/ response by an author, on their own issue tracker for their own personal project, could justify a campaign of "ostracism" (which in an online comment pretty much implies lots of toxic comments being left on various forums; from the target's own issue trackers, to reddit, etc. - i.e. abuse and bullying). I especially think that "this patch is boring" does not justify it.

The correct response is "Thanks for all your hard work on this code, and your generosity in open sourcing it - appreciate it, and I'll see about making my desired changes in my own version". Always really. At least, for anyone who is not a toxic ingrate.

If you had another comment in mind by the author, feel free to link to it.

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 18, 2024 17:16 UTC (Mon) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (1 responses)

> "everyone knows better how to build software,"

So? Maybe they are right?

> "nobody wants to do home work"

Also applies to the author.

> "and read docs and think a bit and very few provide any help."

Also applies to the author.
You see, the author complains about stuff that he does, too.

But it's Ok to have a different opinion.

> I have asked for an example, twice now I think, but you've not given any,

I said twice, that this has been posted already. I am not going to search the discussion threads for you.

> At least, for anyone who is not a toxic ingrate.

Do you realize that your definition of "toxic ingrate" also applies to yourself?
You are disagreeing with me and instead of going your way and forking this discussion to somewhere else, you keep on "harassing" me (by your definition) by trying to push your opinion onto me.
How rude. I am the victim. (Not really. It's called a discussion.)

Herb Sutter on increasing safety in C++

Posted Mar 18, 2024 18:13 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

It's a discussion that, I think, has run its useful course and beyond; perhaps we could bring it to a close, please?