One notable remaining exception to this trend is Go. They are committed to the "simplicity" mantra and so far they have stuck to carefully weighing and discussing any feature added to the language. I know that some consider it too simple and the "glacial" pace of development not exciting enough, but I personally appreciate it...
Apple it seems does well w/ a Scott Forstal or a Bertrand Serlet running cover for their engineers. maybe not so much if there's a giant committtee....
And before that Avie Tevanian.
After that it was Craig Federighi. And I dont like the decisions and directions since then to say the very least.
Sometimes I still think about Bertrand Serlet leaving, the year that Steve passed away or 6 months after Steve took leave of absence. I wonder if he saw what was coming and simply decided it was time to leave.
And this is pure kremlinology at this point, but I feel like Apple Music, at least the client part, has to go back under Craig and not Eddy....
Committees work when they have a shared vision, and a base strong enough to keep them on that path.
It’s clear from Lattner’s statement that Apple have moved that vision, have not brought the group along with that change and the result is wasted effort and a passive aggressive approach.
I would posit that rather than operate as a committee, instead that leadership is being exercised by a limited few and the structure is being retained as a fig-leaf :(
It is not the most efficient way to do things. It explicitly sacrifices some of it to help prevent leaders with uncontested power from coming up with things like concentration camps for dissidents.
The point of civil disobedience isn’t to avoid jail, it’s to show you believe so strongly in your cause you’ll go to jail anyway, so people will listen to your cause and maybe sympathize.
If we skip the step where civil obedience doesn’t result in consequences then we remove its signaling power and it just leads to a race to the bottom.
Justin Trudeau: "When a government starts trying to cancel dissent or avoid dissent is when it’s rapidly losing its moral authority to govern"
AKA Protest is terrific only when it doesn't happen in my backyard. Trudeau had no problem supporting "illegal" protests which blocked roads and essential supplies in other nations.
People say all kinds of things without really having a vision or philosophy behind it. It's just how they feel at that particular moment. Unfortunately most societies offer more reward for easy answers and saying what people want to hear then staying consistent.
Software engineering is largely non value based, they are technical based. On things they designed for and on things they base their code upon. In such affairs, democracy is a incompatible framework. It's like my c++ compiler does not compile Java code, that's a technical design and facts. It has no implications to anything political.
This happens with all corporate software, as people compete to (for instance) foist their new videoconference system into your calendar flow. That's sort of tolerable for end-user software, but horrible for programming languages where feature-feature interactions grow as N^2.