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!"



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