RFC: safe pattern matching for problematic encoding

[Na'Tosha Bard]

FWIW, I thought about replying but never sat down and wrote out a thorough
response.  I've followed both the Unicode debate in general and this
thread, and as a contributor, I have found this thread a bit disturbing.

I don't think exchanges like this are good for the community in general and
Mercurial is already less "friendly" than other open source communities
I've participated in.  I can only imagine how this thread looks to
potential new contributors -- I know *both* of you and, despite knowing
that you mix pretty much like oil and water, I was still a little surprised
to see such an exchange in public.

On one hand:

On Thu, 2012-06-07 at 17:31 +0200, Martin Geisler wrote:

> I've been really disappointed by the silence here since I expected
> people to point out that the angry tone is unacceptable.
>

I agree that the angry tone was unacceptable.  However, it was not entirely
unprovoked, because of both your communication (while I know you well
enough to know it was not intended as offensive, it came across that way in
writing) and (as far as I can see) lack of any *significant* new technical
arguments or ideas.  Just because it is your *right* to question things,
does not mean that is *appropriate*, or *worthwhile* (for anyone as an
individual or for our group as a whole) when it is apparent that no forward
progress is being made and no revolutionary arguments are bring brought
into the discussion.  Surely anyone will tire of someone -- their best
friend, colleague, parent, or child -- constantly re-hashing the same issue
without bringing any significant contributions to the debate.

Now on the other hand:

On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 8:51 PM, Matt Mackall <mpm at selenic.com> wrote:

> I certainly didn't like writing it. On the other hand, it was sincere. I
> am sincerely angry with you. I sincerely no long want to work with you
> because of how you regularly troll me. When you stop trolling me, I will
> stop being angry, no sooner.


<snip>


> ..because as a core contributor, every time you say "hey, we should do
> it this way", I feel obligated as project leader to follow up and say
> "hey, no, sorry, we never ever will" so that users who don't know the
> history here don't start asking when we're switching to Unicode. It's
> like you're repeatedly lighting a little fire I need to come stamp out.
>

<snip>

Anger is one thing, and understandable in some cases -- humans will be
humans, after all -- but I'd argue that actual communication of someone in
your position should probably be held to a very high standard and that this
particular exchange shouldn't have happened (from either side, but
especially yours) as it did.

I understand (and agree with!) your need to comment (especially for the
sake of those who don't know the history of the problem) that decision X
has been made, but this can be done with a quite simple, "NOTE: A decision
has been made on this particular issue; you can find details here: <link to
wiki page>" reply to the thread, and left at that.  Simple, professional,
and completely clear -- and it won't leave newcomers (or even just people
who don't know the two of you in very well) wondering what kind of storm
they just walked into.

I assume, however, (correct me if I am wrong) that decisions can be
changed, or at least re-visited, when someone does bring a truly *new*
perspective, technical argument, or idea/proposition to the table, and that
it always has been the case.


> And you also have
> the option of starting your own Mercurial fork, which I'd frankly prefer
> to wasting another hour on this topic.


That would be a shame, as this project could already use more hands and
splitting the efforts of those of us who are here seems like a waste.

Cheers,
Na'Tosha
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