Alexander Stepanov notes on programming online

[John Reimer]

On Fri, 09 Feb 2007 01:35:31 +0900, Bill Baxter wrote:

> Bill Baxter wrote:
>> Maybe this is widespread knowledge but Alexander Stepanov (creator of 
>> the STL) has some lecture notes online about his take on programming and 
>> such, including of course a healthy dose of the thinking that went into 
>> creating the STL.
>> 
>> http://www.stepanovpapers.com/notes.pdf
>> 
>> Was mentioned on another list I'm on.  They look interesting at first 
>> glance, but I haven't had a chance to look too closely.  Might be 
>> especially interesting reading for those currently designing standard 
>> libraries. ;-)
> 
> Er, just to make sure that's not taken the wrong way -- by ";-)" I do 
> *not* mean to suggest that the folks writing Tango are in need of any 
> design advice.  I just meant that despite referring vaguely to "people 
> working on standard libraries", I really meant specifically Tango folks, 
> since everybody knows there's really only one big standard library 
> project going on at the moment, and it is Tango.  It was a lame attempt 
> at humor, at best.  Hope nobody took it the wrong way.
> 
> --bb


I just wanted to clear something up here concerning the use of the term
"standard":

Tango is certainly intended to be "standard" capable, but by no means has
any claims to being a standard unless someone like Walter makes it so
or people implicitly adopt it as such (in this case, that's still not
/really/ standard other than in use). It's really counterproductive to
pretend a library is going to be a standard just because it exhists: I
think there can only be one standard for D (or else "standard" really
becomes a meaningless term if there are multiples of them) and that spot
isn't something with which to trifle. So, Tango is merely an
excellent alternative. I'm biased to think it rather as the better of the
two for various reasons. :) But having a choice is good for people.  And I
think that that is precisely what Tango is trying to express: people
should be given "choice". :)

Tango definitely tries to be what Phobos can not or will not be.
Tango is designed to be community driven -- hightly responsive to bug
reports, suggestions, critiques, and contributions; well documented, well
maintained.  The development model is different than phobos' and really
not comparable; the designs also are noticeably different, Tango's being
noticeably more object-oriented than procedural.  In addtion, Tango is
/painstakingly/ designed for reliability, performance, and small binary
size (I've seen the developers at work at this process and the amount of
energy they put into finding solutions for these issues is
absolutely incredible). 

Naturally people have different preferences, and that's fine. Still, I
believe Tango can progress much further than Phobos based on the nature of
it's development and design.  I also think it will be an excellent library
on which to build world-class applications, clients and servers, etc. and
to garner a whole lot of attention for the D language, in general. So,
it's nothing but good news for D whatever the outcome.

-JJR

(DISCLAIMER: the opinions expressed above indicate my own personal opinion
and do not necessarily indicate any opinion of the Tango Team members.  )