Go has Rob Pike as a sort of BDFL within google, no?
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....
The idea and most of the initial development was by Pike, Ken Thompson and Robert Griesemer, and their explanation for the simplicity of the language was that no feature was included unless all three of them could agree it was necessary. Thompson has since retired, others have joined the "core team", and Pike doesn't seem to be that active anymore in terms of actual commits - however he may still have an active role in guiding the development, I'm not following the development that closely, so I can't tell. But the way I understand it, it's more of a team effort than a BDFL situation...
"Benevolent junta," maybe.
>Apple it seems does well w/ a Scott Forstall or a Bertrand Serlet
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.
Sometimes I wonder if Craig finds it harder to say "no" more and put his foot down. And his priorities, for better or for worse, seem to be on developing new features vs. fixing bugs/robustness. Granted, he's had to oversee the forking of OS X into 3 active branches now (iOS, iPad, Mac), a processor transition, etc etc.
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....
Re:Chris Lattner left Swift core team
by why_only_15 on Wednesday February 23, 2022 @08:50AM
(#30440901)
Rob Pike is retiring, or perhaps already retired.
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...