Two standard libraries?

[Craig Black]

Dude, you are totally off base.  Vanity!?  Are you kidding me?  The people 
behind Tango are not looking for glory.  They simply want a better standard 
library and so are taking the necessary steps to achieve that goal.  We 
could "improve and augment" Phobos if Walter had the time to coordinate and 
organize contributions.  The Tango project is way more organized than Phobos 
and encourages multiple contributors.  I think it was created out of 
frustration with Phobos.  If Walter had been more proactive about 
coordinating and integrating outisde contributions, I don't think that Tango 
would have ever been started.

I'm not disrespecting Walter in any way.  Walter has indeed done a great job 
on the D language, but Phobos as a standard library is somewhat lacking. 
It's quite understandable that he just doesn't have enough time to maintain 
it properly.  Maintaining the D compiler is a full-time position. 
Maintaining the standard library is another full time position, and is more 
appropriately delegated to someone else.

-Craig

"Steve Teale" <steve.teale at britseyeview.com> wrote in message 
news:f789hk$o0m$1 at digitalmars.com...
> It bothers me that Phobos and Tango seem to be completely divergent.  One 
> of the things that makes a language successful is that it has a good 
> standard library.  It seems that with D, you have to be a betting man - 
> which standard library will prevail.
>
> It seemes to me that given Walter's definition of the language - a system 
> programming language - that Phobos is closer to the mark.  If users want a 
> more object oriented standard library, that's all well and good, but it 
> should be a shoe-in, then if you want to use the OO stuff you can, but 
> code that's been written to work with Phobos should work unmodified with 
> other libraries.  (Note the recent discussion on C++ security). Any other 
> approach seems to me to reek of vanity.
>
> I am not saying that Phobos is perfect.  It has lots of omissions, but I 
> have a feeling that it is about at the right level to enable authors to 
> write the more OO stuff on top of it.
>
> I'm sure that this is a sensitive subject, but there you go!  I think we 
> all agree that Walter has done a damn good job on D, so why should we 
> reject his thinking on Phobos?  I've been watching Walter for a long time 
> now, and in my book, he knows as much about his subject as anyone does, 
> especially considering the coverage that's expected of him.
>
> If D is to succeed, I think we should work together rather than compete. 
> I'd like to see a much more formal system for contributors to take 
> responsibility for areas of Phobos.  Maybe it exists, but if it does, it's 
> hardly in your face.  I'd also like to see people back off on trying to 
> replace it.  Let's improve it and augment it.
>
>