Comment by lifthrasiir

2 years ago

That particular word was used back when V was not yet really open-sourced and only the playground and prebuilt binary was available [1]. The author falsely stated (among others) that it was already open-sourced, and while I believe it was a simple misunderstanding the reaction was not really far-fetched back then. That specific claim was retracted once the compiler was properly open-sourced [2].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20251706

7 comments

lifthrasiir

Reply
Tozen  2 years ago

V was never a "scam" or "vaporware", that's a false characterization and misuse of the terms. Such is being done for the purpose of attempting to hurt the public image of competition, for the benefit of certain parties.

V has been open-sourced, on GitHub, and downloadable since June 22nd of 2019. The language creator publicly stated he would put it out in late June, and did.

There was some excessive fuss about, around June of 2019, over a Patreon supporter early release. That was his right to do such a release, and it was specific for those supporters, but detractors were "angry" that it wasn't for them or open-sourced.

What some detractors were trying to do, was claim that V would never be released because it was somehow a "scam" or "vaporware". That is, there was nothing to release. They were of course wrong, because V was publicly released. That's when targets were switched or the goal posts moved. Anything that could be used to attempt to justify the earlier vitriol, inhibit the rising popularity, or hurt the public image of the language was used.

Furthermore, no programming language is released as a finished product. And an alpha version of any language, is understood by most, as work in progress (WIP) by default. There is no "scam" there. For open-source projects, any person is free to contribute, if they are really so technically knowledgeable as they claim or give the appearance of being. Everyone is free to donate or sponsor a project that they like, there's nothing nefarious about that.

  • lifthrasiir  2 years ago

    My exact statement is that: people had good reasons to believe V is a scam or vaporware before 2019-06-22. Note that this is completely distinct from the statement that V was a scam or vaporware in the same period [1]. I believe this is true. If you don't think so, I'd like to hear your rationales for that---not the reason that V is not a scam or vaporware.

    [1] I should point out that vaporware can be a temporary status, that is, something can become a vaporware until it no longer is. So the exact pinpointing is necessary.

amedvednikov  2 years ago

The author never stated it was open sourced when the early access binaries were released.

They were released 2 days before the source. It was just an early access thing.

  • lifthrasiir  2 years ago

    It was never known to everybody else that the source code would be available 2 days later. I still remember my surprise [1] back then. I, among others to which you still seem to have bad feelings, now believe that you were indeed not malicious and just bad at public relations like many of us. But that is the hindsight and no one would know it at that time.

    [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20231899

    • amedvednikov  2 years ago

      No, it was written that the source would be released in 2 days.

      There was also an announcement on Twitter.

      > I, among others to which you still seem to have bad feelings

      I don't know who you are, and I have no bad feelings towards you.