phobos / tango / ares

[Max Samukha]

On Fri, 09 Feb 2007 01:40:00 -0500, Kevin Bealer
<kevinbealer at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>Okay -- I'm really sorry if any of this seems to have a negative tone. 
>I hesitate to write this since I have a lot of respect for the Tango 
>design in general, but there are a couple of friction points I've noticed.
>
>1. writefln / format replacements
>
>Concerning standard output and string formatting, in phobos I can do 
>these operations:
>
>   writefln("%s %s %s", a, b, c);
>   format("%s %s %s", a, b, c);
>
>How do I do these in Tango?  The change to "{0} {1}" stuff is fine with 
>me, in fact I like it, but this syntax:
>
>   Stdout.formatln("{0} {1} {2}", a, b, c);
>   Format!(char).convert("{0} {1} {2}", a, b, c);
>
>Is awkward.  And these statements are used *all the time*.  In a recent 
>toy project I wrote, I used Stdout 15 times, compared to using "foreach" 
>only 8 times.  I also use the "format to string" idiom a lot (oddly 
>enough, not in that project), and it's even more awkward.
>
>That's why I think phobos really did the "Right Thing" by keeping those 
>down to one token.  Second, the fact that the second one does exactly 
>what the first does but you need to build a template, etc, is annoying. 
>  I kept asking myself if I was doing the right thing because it seemed 
>like I was using too much syntax for this kind of operation (I'm still 
>not sure it's the best way to go -- is it?)
>
>I know about Cout as a replacement for the first one, but as far as I 
>can tell it doesn't take parameters, and usually I need some.
>
>When people ask "why D", I tell them that simpler syntax, better 
>defaults and better garbage collection, each gain us a 50 % reduction in 
>code, and when all three apply to a problem, D can each C++'s lunch. 
>Let's not throw away the simpler syntax.
>
>(I'm not talking about architecture changes, just wrappers with 
>standardized short names that can become familiar to all D users.)
>
>
>2. toString and toUtf8 (collisions)
>
>The change of the terminology is actually okay with me.
>
>But phobos has a way of using toString as both a method and a top-level 
>function name, all over the place.  This gets really clumsy because you 
>can never use the top level function names when writing a class unless 
>you fully qualify them.
>
>For example, std.cpuid.toString(), always has to be fully qualified when 
>called from a class, and seems nondescriptive anyway.  All the 
>std.conv.toString() functions are nice but it's easy to accidentally 
>call the in-class toString() by accident.
>
>For the utf8 <--> utf16 and similar, it's frustrating to have to do this:
>
>dchar[] x32 = ...;
>char[] x8 = tango.text.convert.Utf.toUtf8(x32);
>
>But you have to fully qualify if you are writing code in any class or 
>struct.  If these were given another name, like makeUtf8, then these 
>collisions would not happen.
>
>Actually, if it wasn't already out there, I would want to go through all 
>of phobos and remove all the common collisions.  They are much less 
>trouble in an "import" system than in an "include" system, but every 
>time there is a collision it requires an additional "edit-compile" 
>cycle, and/or a fully qualified name.
>
>And if you forget to import all the right modules, its can impact the 
>correctness angle, because you pick up someone else's "toString" from 
>who knows where.
>
>I'm just saying, ideally tango should not be duplicating this with 
>toUtf8 etc.
>
>Kevin

If you really want the 'writefln' and 'format' with Tango, you could
do the following:

import tango.io.Stdout;
import tango.text.convert.Format;


Format!(char) format;
typeof(&Stdout.formatln) writefln;

static this()
{
	writefln = &Stdout.formatln;
	format = new Format!(char);
}

void main()
{
	auto str = format("Test {0}: {1}", 1, "Passed");
	writefln(str);
	writefln("Test {0}: {1}", 2, "Passed");
}