ModernMech 2 days ago

I read it.

To save people the trouble it seemed like a manic rant intended to pick several bones (at least the author is self aware enough to admit as much). It's heavy on the "trust me, I have sources" and light on actual content. It's got enough drama and insinuations from calling people liars, narcissists, to finally nazis. It veers from committee drama, to Trump, to feminism, to AI... very hard to follow.

Worthy of a daytime soap opera but other than that there's nothing notable there. Except it does make me want to avoid all these people, on both sides of whatever drama this is.

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vacuity 2 days ago

It has the tone you describe, but I think letting that lead you to avoid both sides as problematic is premature. Melodramatic rant doesn't mean wrong, and if the author is even just half right, there are things we as a community should rectify. Avoiding both sides is an issue if one side has far less power. To make a daring analogy, under the #MeToo banner there were certainly accusations that were false or played up, but many came from sincere people who were backed into a corner. When you hear such an accusation without sufficient evidence yet, the nature of the issue is such that you should be considerate of the underdog. Like it or not, taking a side can sometimes be the only reasonable position.

ModernMech 2 days ago

The C++ community can deal with it, I’m not part of it because I’ve been hearing stuff like this for a loooong time from both sides. I’m sure there’s a lot of truth to it. But in my experience either these situations get fixed early or they fester until a huge explosions (like metoo). Either way, all the drama is a far cry from the things I’m interested in - memory safety. If you can’t talk about that without wading through a sludge of toxic personalities, time is better spent elsewhere.

The JeanHeyd Meneide saga really says it all about what’s wrong with the C++ community. I would say their blog post is far more enlightening and avoids all the accusations and combative tone of the linked piece while still making clear what the problem is. And it’s technically enlightening to boot.