# The speed of light is an integer. Why should we care?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-speed-of-light-is-an-integer-why-should-we-care/40108>\
**Category:** Internals & Design\
**Tags:** integer-overflow\
**Created:** [May 25, 2020, 5:16am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-speed-of-light-is-an-integer-why-should-we-care/40108 "2020-05-25T05:16:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 48

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**Author:** ![kevbonham](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kevbonham/32/216165_2.png) [@kevbonham](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kevbonham)\
**Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 2:25am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/the-speed-of-light-is-an-integer-why-should-we-care/40108/48 "2020-05-28T02:25:42Z")

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> [@gevis](#):
>
> The first sections of the documentation are not overloaded with new information to say the least, so putting there a good example definitely does not hurt.

The problem is, **which** good example? Tamas’ point that everything in the FAQ is actually frequently asked suggests that, if we take this approach, we’d have to basically put the entire FAQ at the beginning.

There’s an argument to be made for that, but I’d personally be against it. The main language docs serve a number of purposes - they are both a technical reference as well as a narrative introduction to the language. I think that later purpose would be disrupted if a bunch of tricky gotchas were put at the beginning before a new user had context for them.

> [@gevis](#):
>
> and almost every question on how to do something in it was replied by just “read the documentation,”

Note: no one replied by **just** telling you to read the documentation. Many people provided thoughtful replies, explanations, examples of counter arguments. The second reply (after a silly joke, which was explicitly noted as such) was a really clear statement that

> [@baggepinnen](#):
>
> This only works until you realize each individual has something different they think is important to warn users about and there is only one beginning of the documentation.

I for one have never had to worry about integer overflow. It just doesn’t come up in my domain.

Many of the posts after that were other solutions and work arounds, links to helpful packages etc. Many people don’t agree with you. That’s not the same thing as toxicity.

Your response to all of this was, “yeah, but python does it differently, and is better.” And “if you don’t do what I say, Julia will just be a niche language. Not quality.” To understand why this was met with a bit of negativity, you must understand that people are constantly coming into this forum saying, “if you don’t do `<thing that just occurred to me>`, Julia won’t grow.” As if there aren’t hundreds of people putting hours and hours of their time into thinking about how to make the language better.

> [@gevis](#):
>
> In my initial post, I pointed out to the improvement that can be made to the documentation and got a lot of replied of the form: “It is already written there. It is already done in the best possible way. If you don’t like it, you are free to go and use any other programming language.” And that’s is just as toxic, arrogant and self-complacent as it was in the case of Linux.

For the record, that’s not actually what happened. You suggested something you thought would be an  
Improvement, and people disagreed with you and explained why. Pretty cordially, I think. You responded with hostility. Yes, @Tamas_Papp’s respose was perhaps a bit intemperate, but it’s pretty tedious to constantly have some variant of the conversation

“I have a thought, you should do X”  
“Well, X might not be the best idea. Have you considered Y or Z? Here are some links to places that this has been discussed at length.”  
“X is better for me. Do X or Julia is bad and won’t grow.”  
“Sorry you feel that way. Here are some ways to do X if you want. We’re unlikely to do that as a default for reasons A-E.”  
“Well, I prefer X, and so does some guy I know. I can’t believe you wouldn’t just do X when it’s obviously better.”  
“Well, perhaps julia isn’t the right fit for you”  
“Wow, julia community is so toxic!”

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