D : Not for me anymore
Georg Wrede
georg.wrede at nospam.org
Thu Oct 19 12:28:52 PDT 2006
Sean Kelly wrote:
> It's original aim was to be a complete replacement, but a lack of
> community participation changed the focus a bit.
Don't take it as lack of interest! Maybe it's just that not everyone
felt comfortable submitting their code (because theirs "wasn't up to
par", or whatever other personal reason). The existing Ares code does
set the ante pretty high, after all.
(Additionally, of course, there was the "marketing mishap" of presenting
it as a one-man project, whereupon maybe some potential contributors may
have felt that their code would be subsumed. (Not intentionally, but as
a result of the process.)
> Ares is now really just a minimal framework on top of which a
> standard library may be built.
Now that does sound cool!
It follows, that there should be a project (on dsource, for example),
that aims to build the "end programmer API" on top of Ares.
I can't wait to hear about it!
---
Being "a minimal framework on top of which [...]" is actually an
excellent position for a library: this gives the freedom for the
original developer to fine tune the lib till it is not only rock solid,
but diamond solid.
Since this also (IMHO) implies that it is not for the regular programmer
(rather it would be for the "library writers"), one could even assume
additional freedom, (e.g.) using harder to understand APIs if they can
bring a more coherent, efficient, or elegant structure to Ares, skip
lots of the "user-land" functions (which, of course bring usability and
ease, but many of which are 20% additional utility at 80% of the
effort), thus giving more time to do the "right stuff, and do it right".
The Ares-client libraries [meant to be used by the regular programmer]
could then take care of the many-and-mundane-to-write APIs that make a
library "complete" or "mature", as seen from the receiving end.
---
OT: this reminds me of a joke, that I personally don't even find a joke:
"When in doubt, insert a new abstraction layer!"
More information about the Digitalmars-d
mailing list