The people behind Opal are really awesome. I've spoken to them a few times about this project and they really do know their stuff. Opal looks very promising to anyone who's still using Ruby.
I'm not sure that's a fair explanation. You can do any of these things in the implementation language of a web app. But splitting them out into external applications has other advantages.
This witch hunt from someone who never contributed to Opal has nothing to do with web development and maintainers responded him/her the right way. And frankly the brigading from people who never ever used github and aren't developers was so obvious the whole thing was a farce.
I agree with CoralineAda on her views, however her approach to these issues is almost always wrong (the two of us had discussion on this many times). With that being said, I wouldn't personally contribute to Opal because of Elia.
The way I see these projects--if I get involved with them--is that it's like a virtual workplace, and everyone else working on it and participates in discussions or otherwise is pretty much a coworker.
If anyone feels this strongly about a certain group (like Elia), they will find "devil's advocate" (for a lack of better expression) reasons to disagree with them simply because they don't like them, or otherwise try to diminish the person in various forms to deter them from contributing. The worst part is that they might not even do it on purpose or even ralise it, so they'd be innocent in their self-perception. Not to mention, that some of the other contributors who've been acquainted with him would likely go to his defence (as is the case with meh[1]). Shit like this has been happening all the time; saying that it does not would be ignorant.
[1]: To a certain extent I also agree with meh, that there shouldn't be any politics/religion/general-bullshit topics within a software project, however Elia's Twitter profile managed to do exactly that. If he's going to have hate speech (call it what you want, but that is hate speech) and talk shit on his Twitter, he shouldn't promote his involvement in a respectable project, because this will happen. Elia is a shitty fucking person and he's put a stain on the project (but, hey, that's just my little, worthless opinion).
"If anyone feels this strongly about a certain group (like Elia), they will find "devil's advocate" (for a lack of better expression) reasons to disagree with them simply because they don't like them, or otherwise try to diminish the person in various forms to deter them from contributing."
why on earth do you feel that you're an authority on how people _will_ behave? don't judge everyone else by your awfully low standards of professionalism, almost everyone i've ever worked with has been capable of working with people with which they have disagreements, without their differences of opinions causing issues.
> why on earth do you feel that you're an authority on how people _will_ behave?
I am not an authority on how people will behave; it was simply a prognosis. I am sorry, if I somehow implied otherwise.
> don't judge everyone else by your awfully low standards of professionalism
Generally, if someone has horrible personal antics, it's very likely they'll carry those into other aspects of their life, even GitHub or work. We're only human.
> almost everyone i've ever worked with has been capable of working with people with which they have disagreements, without their differences of opinions causing issues.
Well, consider yourself lucky, then. Not everyone's had the benefit of such experiences. I myself haven't had horribly bad ones either. Although, I know people to whom it happened and how it affected their general emotional well-being; it was horrible watching them slowly deteriorate because they were in such a position.
Look, it's the guy's own personal twitter account. He can say what he wants. And he's put his own work into an open source project, voluntarily.
Despite what many seem to think, there is no "universally agreed" morals and views. So if you want to oust people you disagree with, don't be surprised when others oust you.
Or better yet, we'd all be better off if we all just learn to work peaceably with people we disagree with.
> Look, it's the guy's own personal twitter account. He can say what he wants. And he's put his own work into an open source project, voluntarily.
He's promoting Opal on that same Twitter account, though. A parallel: It's like saying he can bully someone outside of class, and that as long as he sits nice and quiet in class, the school shouldn't do anything about it.
Quite frankly, I think the Internet got to his head.
> Despite what many seem to think, there is no "universally agreed" morals and views. So if you want to oust people you disagree with, don't be surprised when others oust you.
True, but his statement was a soft-core version of hate speech.
> Or better yet, we'd all be better off if we all just learn to work peaceably with people we disagree with.
He didn't simply disagree, though. He's being outright offensive about it: "not accepting reality is the problem here," and "anyway it's months that in Italy school after school sneaks genderism lessons in without parents consent. Not cool," yes okay, let's not educate people, because that's well cool, innit blad.
School bullies are effective because their victims can't simply choose to not interact with them.
That's not the case here. Unless you're an actual contributor and the offensive behavior crosses over.
But realistically, this mob was never going to contribute anything anyways. The truth of most OSS projects (IME) is that they're driven by a handful of people at most. Sacrificing one of those over empty threats of nonexistent meaningful contributions is the wrong move 100% of the time.
> He's promoting Opal on that same Twitter account, though.
So? It's his personal twitter account. He can do what he wants with it. He can say the Surface Book is great, or Opal is great, or Opal sucks. That doesn't make anything he says there into an official endorsement or opinion of the Opal project.
> A parallel: It's like saying he can bully someone outside of class, and that as long as he sits nice and quiet in class, the school shouldn't do anything about it.
The difference is that bullying is actually against rules. Expressing your views on something controversial like this is perfectly allowed due to freedom of speech.
> True, but his statement was a soft-core version of hate speech.
For one specific definition of hate-speech, sure. But not one that's universally agreed upon. In other words, that's like, your opinion, man.
> Tolerance isn’t about loving everyone. It’s precisely the opposite. It’s accepting that are others out there who disgust or repel us, whom we don’t approve of or don’t agree with, but we accept their right to be that way, as long as they stay within the law.
To be fair to Opal, although some maintainers were extremely dismissive and one is personally transphobic, they did agree to institute a Code of Conduct for the project, which is a great step.