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by sedatk 1055 days ago
So, Nim doesn’t seem to be under an umbrella of a non-profit. Isn’t this destined to be a problem at some point regarding either acquisition of rights or succession?

Edit: Ouch. Just found this thread. Very disappointing, and actually makes a greater case for institutional ownership: https://forum.nim-lang.org/t/10312

6 comments

Was about to bring up that thread. Having a dictator for life isn't a good combination with that dictator going on unprompted, unhinged rants.
I thought it was strange that comments were deleted and the thread was closed for going off the original topic when it was Araq who shifted the topic.
I find using main a little obnoxious, but like who cares that much?
I think "default" (Mercurial) is a way better name than anything else for the default branch, duh. But, I err on the side of the disadvantaged because it's impossible to fully empathize with their individual experience, so I try to use "main" whenever I can.

That said, I'm a Slav which is the origin of the word "slave" because in Europe, slaves were predominantly Slavs once. I don't really mind it because it feels irrelevant today. Connotations of "master" doesn't feel that ancient yet though, considering that black people weren't allowed to live in Palo Alto, CA (heart of Silicon Valley today) until 1950's.

Despite the remark about confusing people over 50, a primary branch called "master" isn't exactly an unalterable ancient tradition in version control, either. "Trunk" was common in centralized VCSes. I had to get used to "master" and "main" is at worst a lateral move.
Right, I found such changes silly as well, but this kind of anger is a bad sign. Sounds like someone watches too much corporate TV.

If you can't handle a little silliness from humanity, might as well bow out now.

I also found that thread. It was very pleasing and it seems he has definitely thought about the issue. While his response seems to go from 0 to 100 in a second, he is still honest and gets to the point instead of waiting for all the "why not?"s to roll in.

It's not surprising he has his head screwed on straight. There is clear genius in Nim's design. I'm not a genius, and I don't know much about compilers, just scant knowledge of some data structures and algorithms, but what I do know is that being able to make something so powerful be used by mere mortals like me is very much genius (an idiot values complexity and all that jazz).

On the flip side the Rust Foundation hasn't been that great either...
I don't think that one project dying with its maintainer because he thinks woke is stupid is comparable to the community-hostile changes in trademark policy. No, not the flip side at all.
lmao