I choose to par-phrase him, and had no idea that this would get anyone this upset and lead to me being accused of being a liar. How much of experts these people where I cannot vouch for. Maybe they were second rate language designers or maybe Kelley referred to older papers advising against it.
Either way I cannot find the exact video anywhere where he made this remark despite looking through several. Does it really matter? Can you say for a fact that no language designer expert ever told Andrew Kelley this? I am not claim this is the general opinion among designers, only that this is what Andrew got told.
If anyone has the correct quote, I'll be happy to update the article.
You're an untrustworthy narrator and I stopped reading because I have better things to do than to submit myself to manipulation.
> Either way I cannot find the exact video anywhere where he made this remark despite looking through several. Does it really matter?
Gee, I dunno. Does it matter if I trust the person telling me something? Well shucks, I guess not.
This behavior is nothing short of antisocial. You're not attacking ideas here you're attacking a person.
Having a little grace for people goes a long way.
Or you know, the post is about more than that part, and whether those that dismissed the idea were experts (say SPJ or Hejlsberg) or just some programmers that dabble in compilers and had strong opinions, is irrelevant.
Of course by "stopping reading" one would never get to understand whether that's the case or not - god forbid any otherwise good article/post/book was frontloaded with something inaccurate...
> I was writing that intro based on recalling Andrew Kelley stating in a video
When you are writing for a technical crowd, it is good to be prepared with references and evidence. Unsourced information is likely to be questioned. Unsourced information making dubious claims that go against half a century of computer programming and practice is even more likely to be questioned.
> Can you say for a fact that no language designer expert ever told Andrew Kelley this?
That's not a valid counter-argument. Can you say for a fact that Russell's teapot does not exist? That does not make the existence of Russell's teapot any more likely! The burden of proof lies on you to show that the bold claim you made in your article holds up against scrutiny.
Making this into a huge topic that requires evidence and citations seems a bit over the top. I would say you guys don’t know how journalism works. You equate article writing with scientific journals and papers. They are not the same thing.
I think what is at the core is getting the language description correct.
> There are a lot of people in this thread saying that I said stuff I didn't say. It's maddening.
I have done it in the past and what I learned is that it can give a temporary boost of endorphins, but it's very short-lived and it doesn't really help anyone in the long term, including yourself.
And for what, exactly? Your audience is the same audience you're claiming told Andrew it was a dumb idea, you're basically calling your audience dumb.