On Wed, Apr 17, 2024 at 7:16 AM Frederick Virchanza Gotham via
Std-Proposals <std-proposals_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Apr 17, 2024 at 11:49 AM Rhidian De Wit wrote:
> >
> > I would agree with Brian and others who have said this, but this is getting a bit spammy.
> > The constant updates flooded with small details about the internal working of the Microsoft
> > ABI can be interesting, but I do not think this mailing list is the correct place for it. A blog
> > post would be more suitable.
> >
> > As Brian said, I think the why is far more important than the how, especially because compiler
> > vendors will most likely be able to implement all of this on their own.
>
>
> There are two possible papers to submit:
>
> (1) Add functionality to std::any to get a base class
>
> (2) Add functionality to std::any to get a base class without
> causing an ABI break
>
> We're aiming for Option No. 2 and that is why it's necessary to find
> out whether this is possible on the Microsoft compiler. Going for
> Option No. 1 would just lead to a lot of time and effort wasted on
> liaising with compiler vendors about whether it's possible without an
> ABI break. So we're eliding that liaison by figuring it out by
> ourselves and going for Option No. 2.

It's interesting that you're using "we" here, yet the "paper" you're
writing has only one author.

> I remember 30 years ago, growing up in Dublin, my family had a coat
> hanger hanging out the back of the television in the front room. I
> always wondered how the television broadcaster could come out with
> statements like "Lastnight 1.2 million people tuned in to see the
> season finale of Friends" -- I mean how could they possibly know what
> frequencies my television is focusing on from the signal coming in
> from the coat hanger? Today in 2024 we've moved on to digital and we
> can send emails with "request a read receipt", but I'm still wondering
> how you and Brian know who is and who is not reading, and who is
> taking interest and who is not taking interest, in posts on this
> mailing list.

I find it quite ironic that you have used your lack of knowledge about
how broadcast TV viewership ratings are estimated as a justification
for an appeal to a silent majority. Broadcast TV rating estimates may
not be 100% accurate, but they're better than just assuming something
is or isn't popular without evidence. We may not have definitive proof
that your posting here is increasingly bothersome, but we at least
have anecdotal evidence. While you have no evidence of the contrary.

You have refused every invitation to engage on questions of motivation
in all of your "proposals". You have repeatedly, by words and lack of
words, made it abundantly clear that you feel that motivations for
your papers are irrelevant. Maybe you think you're above such
discussions. Maybe you believe that your ideas are so obviously useful
and good that any discussion of motivation is sophistry. Maybe you
genuinely think that a language should be an arbitrary bag of features
and whether a significant number of people find a feature useful or
not is unimportant; as long as one person does, then it's worth
adding. I neither know nor care which it is.

What is abundantly clear is that you are not willing to engage on the
subject of motivation. Since this subject is actually critically
important to any paper, I submit that your unwillingness to engage on
this makes it clear that you are not acting in good faith on this
mailing list.