Tango collections

[Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website For Email)]

Sean Kelly wrote:
> Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website For Email) wrote:
>> I'm seeing that Tango implements Java-style collections. Is there any 
>> work going on implementing STL-style collections in Tango?
> 
> This is probably more a question for the Tango forums, but I'll reply 
> briefly here anyway :-)  In my opinion, the choice of a container 
> package for Tango was as much from necessity as it was from merit.  Doug 
> Lea's containers were available and obviously well-designed, and we 
> simply didn't have the time to design something entirely from scratch 
> given the development effort for Tango as a whole.  That said, Kris 
> spent a great deal of time bringing the package more in-line with our 
> needs, and I do feel the result is quite solid and consistent.  My 
> issues with it are largely cosmetic (I come from a C++ background and 
> don't like the Java approach to interface design).

Same here. I was hoping that ever since the STL came up, there was no 
looking back at Java-style containers in a language that supports generics.

> As for alternate designs, etc, I'll admit that I was hoping Matthew 
> would find some time to work on DTL.  Some of the fundamental ideas 
> present in that library are good ones, but it's simply far too rough to 
> use as more than reference material.  Also, I feel the proper approach 
> for iterators in D is closer to the Java-style, so a single iterator 
> that knows where it is rather than a pair of dumb iterators to represent 
> range.  There was an extensive discussion of iterators here maybe six 
> months ago, and I followed this with a rough proposal which summed 
> things up.  I can't remember the thread names offhand, but I can dig 
> around for them if you missed the discussion.

Yah. Ranges have turned out to be a very useful addition to the STL as well.

> I'll admit that I wouldn't mind taking a crack at this myself, but from 
> experience I think it's unlikely I'll have much time for user-level code 
> before Tango reaches 1.0.  Something always seems to come up that pulls 
> me back into working on low-level features.

I know how that feels :o|. But my guess (while having about zero idea 
about the possible politics involved) nobody will ever pick up work on 
DTL unless the Tango team decides to do so.

>> Also, I'm seeing some needless Javaisms in the interface, e.g. int 
>> ArraySeq.capacity(), which should be uint. At the same time other 
>> functions, e.g. ArraySeq.instances(), return uint! What gives?
> 
> There is still some cleanup work to be done, and I suspect capacity() 
> was simply overlooked.  Submitting tickets for problems you find is the 
> best way to ensure that one of remembers to do something about it :-)

Sounds great, thanks.


Andrei