[lolinder]

Why has his work not turned into a public bug fix update in 2.5 years?

This feels a lot like Patrick Rothfuss on his Kingkiller Chronicles. The creator has a fan base he doesn't want to disappoint and who will defend his honor as long as he can give them any evidence he's actually making progress, but all the evidence suggests he's actually lost interest or doesn't know where to go from here.

Not that there's anything wrong with losing interest in a hobby project. The problem with Elm is that it was pitched as more than a hobby project but then held so close to Evan's chest that no one else has been able to take over now that he's not maintaining it.

[SantalBlush]

Too many people are concerned with the language's creator, how much he is working on, how many people love or hate him, what his motives are, what he wrote in a comment four years ago, and what he had for breakfast this morning.

These comments are always the same: "Elm is great, but..." Then they dig up some drama about its creator with a years-old post. If the language is great, then maybe they should use it and stop fretting about the person who made it.

[lolinder]

I'm not talking about any specific drama, and I didn't go digging anything up. I'm just talking about what's actually happened to the language: it has been 2.5 years since a single bug was fixed. That suggests that the creator is (contrary to the person I replied to) not working on it any more.

I couldn't care less about the creator or his drama, but I am a bit sad that a language with so much potential has been dropped instead of being handed over to the community.

[SantalBlush]

I am talking about this:

>The creator has a fan base he doesn't want to disappoint and who will defend his honor as long as he can give them any evidence he's actually making progress

So yes, it's fair to say that you do care about the creator and his drama.

[lolinder]

You're reading way more emotion into that statement than I meant to write. I meant it strictly literally and apathetically: both creators have fans who will jump in to reassure onlookers that things are actually moving forward.

[kuratkull]

Knowing who the BDFL is and how a project is run are very important considerations for long term projects. It's not something you can just discard as trivial. Doing an AoC in a language you know nothing about is totally fine, but not in any serious environment.

[kelipso]

Seriously...the person who controls everything about the project, irrelevant and immaterial! Sure, like I'll buy that.