Re: QT4CG meeting 136 draft agenda, 30 September 2025

> MK’s opinions are no different from anyone else’s in that regard: I recorded my own view that his proposal to allow user-defined functions without a namespace was a bad idea. I still think it’s a bad idea, but we did it anyway because that’s where consensus lay.

I might add that many of the PRs I raise, including the one Norm mentions here, are implementing ideas put forward by other members of the group: my aim is often to get a decision one way or the other rather than leaving things open for ever. My proposals don't always find favour with the group, but when they do, it is because I have tried to anticipate how the group will respond before I put things forward. On a group like this that you are much more likely to be able to steer the group in a particular direction if you respect that there are always good arguments both ways and that opposing viewpoints always deserve respect. I once worked on a standards group chaired by an industrial psychologist who would give you feedback on how you had presented ideas: the main thing I learnt was that if you take time to understand the objections to a proposal, you are much more likely to win over the objectors.

As regards the generator proposal, I think it is quite capable of finding acceptance within the group if it were presented in the right way. I don't personally find it compelling enough, relative to other priorities, to put my own effort into it, but it's been sitting on the issues list for two years and we either need to see a concrete proposal or we need to get it off the table. At this stage in the game we need to reduce our aspirations and ask whether a new feature is something we can live without, and a lot of good ideas (including some of mine) are going to fall on stony ground as a result.

Michael Kay

Received on Wednesday, 1 October 2025 20:07:57 UTC