[erlang-questions] Coon - new tool for building Erlang packages, dependency management and deploying Erlang services

[Lloyd R. Prentice]

Hello,

Jesper and Joe do make good sense to me. 

And, more, I would like to see much more informed debate on the technical merits of this new tool.

As aside, however, I haven’t seen so much activity on this list since I first subscribed some four years ago. 

Note that we haven’t heard from any North American black Erlang programmers on this list. Why would that be?

I’m a privileged, white (so far as I know from my spotty genealogy, although the recent work on the Chadwick man casts some doubt), provincial North American male. 

Some in my genetic/gender/national cohort feel that our group is being grievously discriminated against. I don’t happen to feel so for plenty of socio-economic reasons.

Nevertheless, the name of this new tool did seem unfortunate in the extreme to me. Were my skin black, from everything I know, I would definitely feel a twinge of pain and resentment every time one of the many words used historically to define me as less than a respected human being was tossed around in casual conversation.

But some on this list are correct. One can be overly sensitive and some groups do exploit these sensitivities for politely advantage. 

Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that naming of software packages in these times has many cross-cultural implications.

For us, that is the Erlang community, the big question is how can we learn and grow together regardless of our respective cultural heritages? How can we minimize the contentious bickering and trolling that has infected so much discourse across the web?

Tribalism is a reality in our world. Every tribe has its own taboos, sensitivities, and moral blind spots.

But our world is ever more interconnected and interdependent. Empathy and respect for the feelings of others can go a long way toward reducing the friction of cross-cultural exchange. As can respectful discussion of differences.

For me, this thread reinforces my belief in this principle.

All the best,

LRP


Sent from my iPad

> On Feb 12, 2018, at 3:06 PM, Jesper Louis Andersen <jesper.louis.andersen@REDACTED> wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 6:58 PM Joe Armstrong <erlang@REDACTED> wrote:
>> 
>> I have said on many occasions that code should be named by the SHA1 checksum of
>> the content - as far as I know this would not offend people - apart
>> from those who
>> thought the name could be a tad simpler.
>> 
> 
> I might have said this before, but here goes:
> 
> Using a cryptographic checksum for a package and then pointing the name to the checksum would have saved Node.js npm package manager a lot of headaches when people remove, rename or otherwise destroy packages.
> 
> It also allows you to comply with legal requests with a sunset period. As in "I hear you, and the name will be given to you. But we give people 6 months time to upgrade before we remove the old checksummed packages".
> 
> I'm interested in why someone did not try this yet. Or if one tried, why it didn't work out. It seems very obvious to build a content-addressable-store for your packages.
> _______________________________________________
> erlang-questions mailing list
> erlang-questions@REDACTED
> http://erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions

Sent from my iPad

> On Feb 12, 2018, at 3:06 PM, Jesper Louis Andersen <jesper.louis.andersen@REDACTED> wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 6:58 PM Joe Armstrong <erlang@REDACTED> wrote:
>> 
>> I have said on many occasions that code should be named by the SHA1 checksum of
>> the content - as far as I know this would not offend people - apart
>> from those who
>> thought the name could be a tad simpler.
>> 
> 
> I might have said this before, but here goes:
> 
> Using a cryptographic checksum for a package and then pointing the name to the checksum would have saved Node.js npm package manager a lot of headaches when people remove, rename or otherwise destroy packages.
> 
> It also allows you to comply with legal requests with a sunset period. As in "I hear you, and the name will be given to you. But we give people 6 months time to upgrade before we remove the old checksummed packages".
> 
> I'm interested in why someone did not try this yet. Or if one tried, why it didn't work out. It seems very obvious to build a content-addressable-store for your packages.
> _______________________________________________
> erlang-questions mailing list
> erlang-questions@REDACTED
> http://erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/attachments/20180212/3e2e3f3a/attachment.htm>