Recommendation on plotting library

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Friday, July 21, 2023 11:40:25 AM MDT Greggor via Digitalmars-d-learn 
wrote:
> >> So as far as I can tell, python pip originally only dealt with
> >> python code, but eventually wheels were added for binary
> >> support.
> >>
> >>   Just as a wild guess, do you see dub ever evolving in that
> >>
> >> direction?  All the reasons for not supporting pre-compiled
> >> binaries in pip apply to dub, but yet support was added anyway,
> >> and it's been wildly successful.
> >>
> >> I know it's hard to make predictions (especially about the
> >> future), but I'd be interesting in your opinion on the matter.
> >
> > I'd be very surprised if dub added support for pre-compiled
> > binaries - particularly since D isn't generally binary
> > compatible across releases - but I really don't know what the
> > folks working on dub want to do with it.
> >
> > - Jonathan M Davis
>
> Dependency management sucks for windows and I understand wanting
> the ability to just do dub run and have it “just work tm”.
>
> Up to date versions of Windows 10 should have curl included and
> dub can run commands before building, so you could try
> downloading a prebuilt lib for windows via curl.
> https://everything.curl.dev/get/windows

Well, from what I recall (though it's been a while since I messed with
anything like it), it's possible with dub to run more or less arbitrary
stuff (e.g. use cmake from dub). It's a pain, but it can be done. And if
that's the case, then you should be able to design a dub project that pulled
in pretty much whatever you want with curl. And simply being able to build
and run a D program as part of the build would be enough to be able to use
curl in general without Windows having added it, since dmd comes with it
because of std.net.curl. But of course, that's a rather different thing from
dub providing a clean way to handle that sort of thing.

dub can do a lot, but because it's really not designed around doing much
beyond pulling in dependencies from code.dlang.org and then building all of
the code, doing stuff beyond that gets to be problematic even if it can be
done. So, if we wanted something more fully featured, then dub would need a
bit of an overhaul. And maybe dub will get that at some point (I don't
know), but as things stand, if anyone really wants to do complex stuff with
their builds, dub can be pretty awkward to use. And that's why projects such
as https://code.dlang.org/packages/reggae exist, though it's geared more
towards providing a more fully-feature build system than providing a way to
pull in pre-built binaries and the like. What additional features we get in
the future will likely be highly dependent on how motivated the people are
who want dub to be able to do more.

- Jonathan M Davis