Re: [ANN] mc^2

["Yury V. Zaytsev" <yury shurup com>]

On Sun, 2015-05-10 at 14:55 +0300, Paul Sokolovsky wrote:

> > 1) How many distributions have it packaged so far?
>
> You ask as if it was a systemd and you're looking start witchhunt
> against distro which still didn't include it ;-). 
>
> > 2) Does it already provide a stable embedding API?
>
> Nope, that's why I think it would be interesting to have use of it like
> that, to establish it ;-).
>
> > 3) How complete is the standard library? (I know...)
>
> Good news: there's a standard library, I mean something which really
> can be called that! Unlike Lua.

So, if I were to take your answers at their face value rather than
something you said just to make a mailing list argument, it's basically,
no, no and no. OK.

> > 4) Does it have a JIT? (okay, this one is unfair)
>
> It has AOT, which is cooler, as you get timing guarantees. Also, *Lua*
> doesn't have JIT. It's a separate project, whose API is compatible or
> not.

Okay, AOT is nice, but the statement on LuaJIT API is unfair.

> Python as a language does have JIT, if you need that for plugin scripting.

Thanks for kindly letting me know about it! I'm one of the minor
contributors to PyPy.

> That's why it's important that *maintainers* take formal criteria of
> "completeness" and "lack of random gaps in functionality". And
> higher-level criteria, like mc being an open-source project, which
> naturally should be expected to be used for, and appreciate needs of
> open-source software. And OSS is very diversified, including
> line-endings. I'm, as an open-source developer, deal with at least a
> dozen new projects each month, and regularly hit cases when mc instead
> of helping, complicates me contributing to such software (by not
> allowing to edit files comfortably).
>
> So, yes, you personally may not care about it, but this issue - of
> diversity of real-world files - objectively exists.

Your argument is zum Besten der Armen; everybody knows that the
situation with the maintenance of mc is suboptimal to say the least.

However, it's all in your hands: 

1) You can maintain your own patchset on top of mc, like I did for
years, and it's not as difficult as it might seem

2) You can keep pesting the current maintainers and hope for the best
(like Egmont does, and more often than not, he is successful at that, so
maybe if you aren't, then there is something you could have done
differently, if success is your ultimate goal in the first place)

3) You can fork mc or rewrite it from scratch

4) You can hire someone to work on mc

The possibilities are endless. Instead, you keep complaining on the
mailing list that somebody who submitted something you didn't like got
the attention you think should have been rather given to you. That's
your choice. Good luck!

-- 
Sincerely yours,
Yury V. Zaytsev