Jon Pretty

If you have a personal problem with @jdegoes, then damn well take ownership of your inability to work with a difficult person, rather than laying it at the door of unknown, unnamed hypothetical contributors. /12

The claim has also been made repeatedly that @jdegoes has failed to change despite numerous warnings and criticism. As someone who has passed plenty of criticism onto @jdegoes, I have been looking avidly for just such a change. /13

And there's plenty of evidence: If you watch videos of @jdegoes recorded after his keynote at @scalapeno_conf, you will struggle to find a single word or phrase to criticize. That's a change which came about in response to criticism. It's wilful blindness if you don't see it. /14

Why does this make me so angry? I've just finished organizing Scala World, a conference of 250 attendees, who had a fantastic time meeting, discussing, learning and sharing ideas around the Scala language, upon which I've based my entire career. /15

I've been working my arse off to try to bring people together for a few days of friendly collaboration, which I do for love, not for profit, as many other conference organizers do. @jdegoes was there, he enhanced the conference with his presence, and everyone had a good time. /16

Despite this, the Scala community has developed a bad reputation for "drama". That's a reputation which @typelevel are well aware of, and which has been hugely damaging to the language: orders of magnitude more damaging than @jdegoes, before you even count his contributions. /17

And yesterday's action against @jdegoes knowingly stokes this fire because a handful (and it is just a handful; not speculative hordes) of people can't work with @jdegoes. The action is divisive, selfish, and it's entirely predictable that few positives will come from it. /18

Like me, @jdegoes earns a living through Scala. He's not going to "disappear" overnight, or stop his self-promotion any more than @lightbend are, because we all rely on it to be profitable, and anyone can see this. /19