Segregating the standard library

[Bill Baxter]

Chris Miller wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 17:47:19 -0500, Daniel Keep 
> <daniel.keep.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> * We need to make a clear distinction between the absolute bare-minimum
>> for the compiler and produced programs to function (let's call that the
>> core lib) and everything else (the standard lib.)
>>
>>   The core lib would probably contain things like intrinsics, and
>> anything else necessary (I think that also includes Object
> 
> Agreed.

What should the overall goal be?  A tight unified hierarchical set of 
packages like those found in Java/C#.NET?  Or a more loose and ragtag 
library collection with a flat namespace, more like Python/Perl?

While I think the former would be great to have, I think the latter is 
more realistic.  Java and C# have nice libraries, but I think that kind 
of global consistency and hierarchical organization is not so feasible 
with the open source model.  The "loose collection of useful things" 
model seem to work better in the open source world.  Much of what's in 
the standard libraries of Python and Perl were once separate libraries 
written by 3rd parties.  They just got to be good enough and popular 
enough that they were folded into the standard distributions.

--bb