> On 15 Jun 2024, at 14:11, Rowan Tommins [IMSoP] <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I fundamentally disagree with this assertion.
>
> If somebody makes a valid point, it doesn't automatically become invalid because time has
> passed, or because nobody happens to repeat it in a later e-mail thread.
>
> If I copy and paste the content of each e-mail from the previous thread, does that make them
> "carry weight" again? What if I contact the authors of each, and ask them to do so? Is
> that a good use of anyone's time, when we can just read the archives?
>
>
>
>> I think enough time has passed that gauging the sentiment of today is valid and worthwhile,
>> especially if it has shifted (and we cannot know without asking).
>
>
> I don't think "sentiment" is something we should place value on. As I said in my
> last e-mail, we should be weighing the merit of the arguments for and against, not the people who
> are making them.
>
> I don't see value in repeating the same arguments every X months or years, like appointing
> a different jury to try the same case.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Rowan Tommins
> [IMSoP]
If you appoint a different jury to try a 20 year old case, the decision of the previous jury
doesn't have any more weight than any other evidence on its own. That's because society
changes, law changes and people change. A 10 year old discussion in the world of technology has
little value to add and a lot of harm to cause.
You may have core developers that voted no due to maintenance burden, but if said maintainer is no
longer active and new maintainers don't mind it, it's a moot argument because people
changed.
You may have no votes casted because at the time PHP technical debt couldn't cope with such a
change, which maybe isn't relevant anymore because the project evolved.
You may have community leaders voting no because they inherently disagree with the concept but if
they have moved on to other endeavors and current PHP community members like the concept, then
society changes play a vital role in a different outcome.
Ultimately I can agree with you that there is no point in rehashing the same discussion under the
same circumstances. But the last 10 years has completely changed the development world enough that
anything that old is worth rehashing and I would even add that going through the archives is a
double-edge sword because you can either come out of it with a stronger argument for why the RFC is
good now or you can come out of it overwhelmed with negativity and a polluted opinion on the type of
barriers that you may think that exists but that might be long gone