Alternative decorator syntax decision

[Peter Hansen]

Istvan Albert wrote:
> David Fraser wrote:
> 
>> Thats because the point of this vote is to try and gather a consensus 
>> about what the best alternative is,
> 
> But what if the alternative is that you don't need a best
> alternative? There lies the crux of the problem.

No, deciding if an alternative should be chosen is step two
at this point.

>  > not to try and out-vote the original contender.
> 
> If you cannot out-vote the original contender than what
> is the whole point of the poll? Why would this proposal be
> accepted if it cannot outclass the original one?

It will *not* be accepted on the basis of whether or not
it can "outclass" (I assume you mean get more votes than)
the original one.  As has been pointed out repeatedly,
this is not a democracy, and outvoting the @pie syntax
would do nothing.

The point is that we were asked *specifically* for a
community consensus on an alternative, if there should
be an alternative.  This vote is to help form that consensus,
not to decide *if* there should be an alternative.

You might even say that the decision as to whether there
should be an alternative cannot be made until the outcome
of the vote is known.  If no alternative gets overwhelming
support, then we are in the same situation as the old ternary
operator debate.

You were around for that, weren't you?  The community could
not agree on *which alternative to doing nothing* was best,
so in the end nothing happened.

The parallel with the present debate is that if the community
cannot rally around any alternative as being better than
all the other non- at pie alternatives, then "nothing will happen"
and in this case that means @pie wins out and goes in 2.4.

-Peter