Blog post: community and communication

Author: odersky

blog/_posts/2019-05-02-community.md

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+---
+layout: blog-detail
+post-type: blog
+by: Martin Odersky
+title: "Community and Communication"
+---
+
+The Scala language is a big tent. It supports object-oriented and
+functional code working together. The point of Scala was always to
+show that these paradigms can be combined in a compact set of unified
+language features. But while the language design stresses unification,
+the same can not (yet?)  be said about the community of Scala
+programmers.
+
+In fact, Scala is used in many different ways. There are the people who
+use it as a "better Java" with more powerful object-oriented features,
+and there are the people who use it as a "poor man's Haskell",
+concentrating on the purely functional language subset. And then there
+are the many in between who use it in a predominantly
+functional style with an object-oriented module structure, without
+being too dogmatic about it.
+
+I see this difference of approaches as a big opportunity. There are so
+many great ideas to debate and opportunities to learn from each other!
+Lots of these ideas feed into the design of Scala 3, with the overall
+goal to make Scala's integration of paradigms even tighter than it is
+now, as well as making it simpler and safer.
+
+Unfortunately, sometimes a competition between ideas becomes a fight
+between people promoting them. This can happen in the heat of debate,
+but we have to draw a line where personal attacks become persistent,
+where others are ridiculed or where statements are distorted intentionally.
+
+None of this should be controversial.  But if such behavior occurs
+what should we do about it?  And who even is "we"? If we take all
+Scala users together, the answer is: there's nothing to be
+done. Everybody can use a programming language and communicate about
+it in the way they see fit. If we take us as individuals, the answer
+is that we can and will stop interacting with people whose behavior we
+object to. If we talk about organizations such as the Scala Center, or
+Lightbend, or Typelevel, I believe they also have the right and
+sometimes the obligation to take a stand. First, they are ultimately
+made up of individuals, and cannot be disassociated from them. Second,
+they are tasked to safeguard the health of the projects and
+communication channels that they own, and that means they should not
+look away when norms are violated.
+
+This is painful for everyone involved, and tends to be done only in
+exceptional cases.  I take this as a challenge for us to develop
+better ways of conflict resolution that are inclusive, consensual, and
+respectful of one another. I also believe it's important not to let
+the past hold us up forever. Individuals and their organizations
+change and decisions should take that into account. The goal must be
+to resolve controversies of that nature quickly and get back to an
+intense and friendly competition of ideas in Scala.
+