Poll results

[David Holmes]

One might argue that the non-lambdenizens were mostly likely to have 
been following the (now very long term) "closures" discussions and so 
were more familiar with, and possibly therefore in favour of, the BGGA 
syntax.

David

Brian Goetz said the following on 06/21/11 04:20:
> And now, for the poll results.
> 
> Recall there were two polls.  The first was polluted not only because 
> the link escaped, but many of the voters in the escaped version saw what 
> were essentially different questions.  So the poll audience was a mashup 
> of the lambda-dev community and the Twitter community voting on two 
> different things.  The second was mostly just the  lambda-dev 
> community.  But, like the commercial about the origin of 
> chocolate-and-peanut-butter snacks, the pollution did have a silver 
> lining in that it disclosed an interesting phenomenon.
> 
> Here is the results of the poll taken of the lambda-dev community:
> 
> https://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=ZaY6XH_2b_2fmUuAxS2GjzzyI95hkdaFXGI2RqnEDT7iFZI_3d 
> 
> 
>  From a strict "pick a winner" perspective, BGGA has the:
>   - most lovers
>   - most lovers+likers
>   - fewest haters
>   - best lover/hater ratio
> 
> But Strawman posts a good second (thought more haters.)  SotL seems the 
> most "don't love it but could live with it".
> 
> Here's where it gets interesting.  When the first poll got polluted, 
> there were 25 or so voters already, drawn from the lambda-dev 
> population.  Then a bunch of twitters showed up.  Let's say the first 
> poll was 1/3 lambdenizens and 2/3 twitterites.  These are clearly two 
> different populations:
>   - Lambdenizens have seen all the forms before, most twitterites 
> probably haven't;
>   - Lambdenizens were counseled to think before voting, and I suspect 
> most did; twitterites were missing those instructions and therefore 
> their contribution to the polling was much more "click from the hip."
> 
> Here's the results of the polluted poll: you see an even more dramatic 
> swing for BGGA, and much lower support for Strawman:
> 
> https://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=JtrtDmlN_2fMsWy4xYDUNwcBmFdUo3NF85BDpfq1HS9go_3d 
> 
> 
> Given that about 1/3 of the votes were from the Strawman-friendly crowd 
> (and I saw this while I was hitting reload on the poll results the first 
> time -- there was a clear point at which the votes started to go "the 
> other way" that correlated with the time the link escaped), nearly all 
> the twitterites disliked Strawman, and clearly had a stronger like for 
> BGGA, which crushed all the others on the metrics above.  (I could do 
> some statistical work to try and eliminate the lambda-dev contribution 
> from the polluted poll, but I've been too lazy to do so yet -- but I 
> don't think anyone would be surprised by the result.)
> 
> One explanation for the skew is that strawman looks awful horrible barfo 
> to most Java devs initially, but then grows on you.  (Or maybe it 
> appeals only to language lovers, but I have to say it looked awful to me 
> at first and I still feel that way.)
> 
> But there's a clear preference for BGGA not only on a click-from-the-hip 
> basis, but that preference sticks around somewhat even after you've had 
> more time to think about the alternatives.
> 
> Over the next few weeks we will be running more polls; some will be 
> targeted at specific A-vs-B choices, and we will probably do a broader 
> poll that is designed for the community at large.  Stay tuned.
> 
> 
>